Marlowe's Shade

Baroness Warnock: "The demented have a 'duty to die'"

2008-09-19T05:22:00.003-05:00

From The Telegraph

The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.

She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.

The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.

[snip]

Lady Warnock said: "If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives – your family's lives – and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service.

"I'm absolutely, fully in agreement with the argument that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die, but I feel there's a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they're a burden to their family, or the state, then I think they too should be allowed to die.

"Actually I've just written an article called 'A Duty to Die?' for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself."

She went on: "If you've an advance directive, appointing someone else to act on your behalf, if you become incapacitated, then I think there is a hope that your advocate may say that you would not wish to live in this condition so please try to help her die.

"I think that's the way the future will go, putting it rather brutally, you'd be licensing people to put others down."

A Death in a Dutch Family

2008-09-08T08:46:00.004-05:00

From The Guardian

5.30pm: Dad is bent over the toilet bowl with a brush in his hand and a scowl on his face. I walk up to him. "Shall I give you a hand?" Dad begins to snigger, abandoning any attempt to make sense of the situation. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our backs to Mum, who paces around the landing with a newly fitted catheter in her hand.
The catheter has been put in by nurse Marianne to enable our GP, who will be with us in half an hour, to give Mum a lethal injection. But instead of having a moment of peace with us, as Marianne suggested, Mum demands that we clean the toilets. Both upstairs and downstairs.
My brother, Maarten, is sitting on the edge of the bath, staring out of the bathroom window.
"Imagine," he mutters. "Her last hour, spent like this."
This is the Netherlands, where voluntary euthanasia is permitted, as well as physician-assisted suicide. This is the day my mother has chosen to die, and the toilets need to be spotless.

The mundane stories of everyday euthanasia,those that don't usually make it into the papers are often the most disturbing. The blockquote above doesn't adequately express the essense of this story. For those who haven't seen the grim, desparate and ultimately tragic side of this debate, I encourage you to read the whole article. It does an excellent job of pointing out that those who choose assisted suicide are more often than not motivated not by pain, butdepression and fear. What is needed is not a quicker death, but hope.

Woman Who Begged for Euthanasia Has a Change of Heart

2008-07-11T09:47:00.002-05:00

From SPUC Blog

Alison Davis, who has spina bifida, and leads No Less Human, a division within SPUC, says:

"The story of Mrs. Seema Sood explains in a nutshell why allowing legalised killing of vulnerable people by euthanasia is wrong. Mrs. Sood, who is now 37, longed for death two years ago, and even petitioned the President of India for euthanasia. She had lost all movement of her limbs for 15 years following a severe attack of rheumatoid arthritis, and was in despair. Now two years later, after surgery paid for by the Government of her state and her university alumni association, she says 'I regret the letter to the President. Everything was so dark for me ealier, but I'm excited about my mobility now and I'm confident I will improve.' "

"Euthanasia would have robbed Mrs. Sood of the chance to recover her love of life, and to benefit from the surgery which revolutionised her life, and no one would have known that life held something better for her in the future. She is not the only vulnerable person who has changed her mind about wanting to die. I've been through the same experience myself."

"But euthanasia allows for no changes of mind. It is the philosophy of despair. What sick and disabled people who want to die really need is the sort of help and support which Mrs. Sood received both from politicians and her friends. Note well, politicians. Your actions could save a life like Mrs. Sood's rather than condemning her and others to death."

Mexico Lures Boomers with "Eutho-tourism"

2008-06-05T09:47:00.002-05:00

Thanks to their new strategic marketing partner Dr Phillip Nitschke Mexican tourism has opened up an new frontier to attract elderly Boomers who are looking for an easy way off this mortal coil.

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (Reuters) - Elderly foreign tourists are tapping Mexican pet shops for a drug used by veterinarians to put cats and dogs to sleep that has become the sedative of choice for euthanasia campaigners.

Tourists from as far as Australia have travelled to Mexico to buy liquid pentobarbital, which causes a painless death in humans in less than an hour, right-to-die advocates say.

Clutching photos of the bottled drug to overcome a lack of Spanish, they have maps sketched by euthanasia activists to locate back-street pet shops and veterinary supply stores near the U.S. border. There they can buy a bottle for $35 to $50, enough for one suicide, no questions asked.

"We have a moral right to a peaceful death. I don't want to die with a total loss of dignity, incontinent, barely able to see and stand up, suffering as my mother did," said Bron Norman, a healthy 65-year-old Australian woman who spent $2,860 to fly to Mexico in March to buy pentobarbital.

Used legally across the world to anesthetize and euthanize farm animals and pets, pentobarbital, sometimes known by the trade name Nembutal, is tightly restricted to veterinarians.

But lax regulation in Mexico means it can easily be bought.

Euthanasia campaigners call it "the Mexico option" and say they are willing to travel so far because pentobarbital is one of the few drugs that produces a reliable and tranquil death by sending a person to sleep before shutting down breathing.

"There are few countries in the world where the drug is as readily available as in Mexico," said Australian doctor Philip Nitschke, who set up pro-euthanasia group Exit International.

Exit International has helped 250 people from Europe, the United States, Australia and New Zealand get pentobarbital in Mexico over the past few years. And, it says, interest is growing.

"You do this trip because you want an insurance policy," said Michael Irwin, a British euthanasia campaigner and former United Nations medical director who plans to take a dozen Britons to Mexico this year to buy the drug, helped by Exit.

"You make (the trip) in good health so that if you become terminally ill this can guarantee you a quicker exit."

Foreign buyers usually fly to U.S. border cities and cross over to Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo or Ciudad Juarez, the group says.

A Reuters reporter buying a bottle in Nuevo Laredo was given a range of brands to choose from.

How long before some clever entrepreneur sets up an retirement community based on this concept?

Bienvenidos a "Pueblo Fin dela Viaje"!

If you lived here, you'd be dead now.

Former SS Doctor accused of euthanasia honored by German medical group

2008-05-27T08:56:00.002-05:00

From Israel NN

The German Federation of Internal Medicine has awarded a former Nazi SS doctor, suspected of carrying out euthanasia. Dr. Hans-Joachim Sewering, 92, was honored for giving "unequalled services in the cause of freedom of the practice and the independence of the medical profession and to the nation's health system," according to the Federation.

American Jewish organizations previously have charged that Sewering killed 900 Jewish children at a euthanasia center. He has admitted to being part of the elite SS unit but has denied carrying out euthanasia.

Jack Kevorkian has a new fan

2008-03-26T10:00:00.003-05:00

From Newsbusters

Even with the departure of Rosie O'Donnell, The View continues to to be the lowest circle of that outer darkness known as daytime TV. In yesterday's program, Whoopi Goldberg gushes over Jack Kevorkian's run for Congress.

...euthanasia, like race, is one of those things nobody wants to talk about. It makes people very uncomfortable. I think euthanasia is, is an important thing and it should be there for people to make that decision if they chose to. It should be available to them with counseling like a lot of other things. And I’m a big fan of Jack’s because he believed that he could help people who were in, in a place where no one was helping them. And where, where it was too much.

Like most of Jack's fans, Whoopi doesn't have her facts straight. Most of Kevorkian's victims were not terminally ill, and it is likely if they were properly treated for depression they would still be alive today. We don't know if Whoopi is aware of the ghoulish experiments on the dying that Kevorkian performed or planned, or if it would change her opinion of him.

What is clear is that is that the media will always portray Kevorkian as an icon of social activism despite all evidence to the contrary. I don't know how Whoopi came to the conclusion that euthanasia is like race, but it's led her to the same tired propaganda that this attention starved malignant and mentally ill character is somehow a brave crusading pioneer of human rights...

Belgium's Most Acclaimed Writer "Dies Through Euthanasia"

2008-03-19T13:21:00.002-05:00

From AGI News in Italy

Hugo Claus, the Belgian writer considered the greatest in Dutch-Flemish, has died through euthanasia: his publisher 'De Bezige Bij' announced this from The Netherlands, quoted by the Belgian press. Claus suffered from Alzheimer, and he announced his desire to die this way a long time ago, even specifying the precise hour of his death: today, in the clinic of Antwerp. He was 78 years old. Born in Brussels, writer, poet, dramatist but also scriptwriter and painter, anti-conformist, Hugo Maurice Julien Claus obtained his biggest success in '83 with what is considered his masterpieces: "The sorrow of Belgium", on the Nazi occupation of his country.

While it's not exactly shocking that a post-modern angst-filled writer would opt out of existence this way in a country where it is legal, I found the language interesting. "Died through euthanasia" sounds so innocuous, doesn't it? The reality is of course Minheer Claus was incapable of ending his own life so he went to a clinic and some medical staffer was apparently happy to assist him. For some [and perhaps a diminishing number] this would present a moral problem with more consequences for society than can be reliably foreseen by mortals. But this isn't a concern for most of Europe. We are accustomed to phrases like "died after a long illness" and "passed away quietly at home" in the obituaries. Expect "died through euthanasia" to be making more frequent appearances in the future...

Australian Ends Life with Homemade "Suicide Robot"

2008-03-19T09:38:00.002-05:00

The Culture of Death in Australia has take a new technological twist:

AN 81-year-old Gold Coast man built, and yesterday used, an intricate suicide machine to remotely shoot himself, after downloading the plans from the internet.

The Burleigh Heads man, who lived alone, left notes of his plans and thoughts as he struggled to come to terms with demands by interstate relatives that he move out his home and into care.

He spent hours searching the internet for a way to kill himself, downloaded what he needed and then built a complex machine that would remotely fire a gun.

He set the device up in his driveway about 7am yesterday, placed himself in front of it and set it in motion.

His notes explained that he chose the driveway as he knew there were tradesmen working next door who would find his body. The plan worked as the workmen heard the gunshots and ran to investigate.

The Gold Coast Bulletin will not reveal how the machine worked, but it was attached to a .22 semi-automatic pistol loaded with four bullets.

It was able to fire multiple shots into the man's head after he activated it.

Plans to deport gay Iranian teen are a death sentence

2008-03-13T08:32:00.004-05:00

Are the post-Christian societies of England and Holland truly free and liberal if they are unwilling to to give asylum to a gay Iranian 19 year old who faces certain death if he returns to his country? Apparently they love the sin but not the sinner.

The Independent:

A gay teenager who claims he faces the death penalty in Iran after his boyfriend was executed there two years ago has spoken of his anger and disappointment at losing his legal battle against deportation.

Mehdi Kazemi, 19, who sought sanctuary in Britain in 2005 when he discovered that his partner had been hanged in Tehran for engaging in homosexual acts, is expected to be returned to Iran in the next few weeks.

Mr Kazemi fled to Holland from Britain last year after the Home Office rejected his claim for asylum. But yesterday, a Dutch court ruled that he should be sent back to Britain after refusing to consider his claim for asylum.

Speaking from an immigration detention centre in Rotterdam, Mr Kazemi told his uncle, a British citizen, that he was "very, very angry" at the decision, which will see him returned to Britain within 72 hours.

He believed he would have had a much better chance of protection from deportation to Iran in Holland, according to his uncle. But yesterday, Holland's highest administrative court rejected his lawyers' arguments that the UK asylum and immigration system did not take proper account of international conventions that uphold the rights of refugees.

If the secular world won't save Mehdi Kazemi, who will? As Christians who value life, can we reconcile our Biblical view of homosexuality with the plight of this young man? Would we be willing to work with those we usually oppose in the struggle over whose values should guide our culture?

If not, Mehdi may be facing his executioners in a matter of days.

“Persistent Vegetative State” Diagnoses Too Often A Rush To Judgement

2007-08-06T09:08:00.000-05:00

From Political Mavens [HT from DWT at DL]

A study by the Coma Science Group of the University of Liège, Belgium, finds that up to half of patients in an acute vegetative state regain some level of consciousness.

In the study, which analyzed data collected over a five-year period, researchers assessed and classified comatose patients according to the Coma Recovery Scale. The researchers determined that some 40 percent had been incorrectly diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, when they were in fact in a minimally conscious state. And 10 percent of those diagnosed as being minimally conscious were communicating functionally.

Patients who are minimally conscious shows periodic signs of awareness himself and his surroundings but is usually cannot communicate with others, whereas a patient who is in a persistent vegetative state is awake but lacks such awareness.

The Coma Science Group’s Dr. Steven Laureys presented the study findings at the European Neurological Society congress in June:

“Our data show that acute vegetative state is certainly not rare among patients admitted to intensive care … What is important to note is that it may be transient and that the prognosis for patients with impaired consciousness depends to a great extent on the nature of the brain damage. … The study underlines the importance of extreme caution in any decision to limit the life chances of patients during the acute phase of a vegetative state.” …

Take the case of Jesse Ramirez, who suffered major brain injuries after his car flipped over and he was thrown from the vehicle on May 30th. Doctors predicted that the 36-year old Arizonan could remain in a permanent vegetative state. Less than two weeks after the accident, his wife, Rebecca, 33, asked doctors to remove his food and water tubes. But Jesse’s family challenged her decision in court, and a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ordered the tubes reconnected.

And then, Ramirez regained consciousness. The Arizona Republic reports:

[H]e can hug and kiss, nod his head, answer yes and no questions, give a thumbs-up sign and sit in a chair. …

Jesse is now ready to move from a hospice to a rehabilitation facility.

“We have had a lot of miracles,” said Betty Valenzuela, Ramirez’s aunt. “He would have been gone.”

“All of the family is absolutely thrilled that he has now become conscious and is able to go through rehab,” Judge Paul Katz said. …

The Arizona Republic notes that this same Judge Katz had previously scolded the family for not acting in Jesse’s best interest

"I watched as my daughter took her own life"

2007-06-26T13:06:00.000-05:00

From the Daily Mail, this has to be a parent's worst nightmare:

On May 30, Carol, a 55-year-old nurse and midwife with multiple sclerosis, died after drinking a cocktail of drugs at a flat in Zurich, courtesy of Dignitas - the controversial Swiss group which arranges legal euthanasia. Her mother was there, holding Carol's hand when she slipped into a coma three minutes after drinking the deadly liquid. Kathleen's last words to her daughter when she died 30 minutes later were: "Bye, bye, my darling."

It goes against every mother's instinct to stand back and watch her child commit suicide, yet Kathleen fought every maternal urge and did just that. Now she must live with the consequences.

"No parent wants to witness their child dying, no mother wants to outlive her daughter, but this was what Carol wanted. This was all about Carol, not me, it was the last thing I wanted," says Kathleen.

Absolutely tragic.

Kevorkian: The Less they Know, the More They Like Him...

2007-06-05T12:02:00.000-05:00

No doubt I will run across another dozen of these odes to the compassion and courage of Jack Kevorkian. And when the red tunnel vision passes I'll feel compelled to respond. It's an exercise in futility.

The latest of these rhapsodies of support for Kevorkian, a lighthearted piece by Lisa Birnbach in The Huffington Post, explains the why any attempts to counter the media lionization of Kevorkian is useless. Facts are distinctly NOT welcome in any discussion of Kevorkian. In fact the the less you know about him or any related subject the more qualified you are to pronounce his worthiness. Observe how cunningly she establishes her credentials:

I can't say I've spent much time thinking about Jack Kevorkian. I haven't even spent much time thinking about euthanasia. That is, until the Terri Schiavo ratings period on CNN, when I devoted quite a bit of time thinking about the horrific politicization of this young woman in a prolonged vegetative state -- a women who would probably have pulled her own cord had she been able.

That last phrase is crucial. Did you see the aggressive shift from obliviousness to a brazenly uninformed position. So high is the confidence in her stance that she can throw around mangled phrases like "prolonged vegetative state" with impunity, then anchor the crux of the argument on what Terri "probably" would have wanted. It is at that point that it begins to dawn on even the slowest of us [like myself] that the innocence and goodness of Kevorkian and those who only wanted to help Terri achieve the death she probably would have wanted is so OBVIOUS that even a literary layman in ethical issues and humble expert on the culture of the mid to late 20th Century Preppie Nation can see it clear as day. The point is made masterfully here:

Every time CNN showed the one move she made in years, a kind of rolling motion (no proof of brain activity if you ask me, an English major -- no, actually worse, a pass/fail semiotics major) -- I cringed and got progressively angrier. She resembled David's haunting portrait, Death of Marat, or that's what I would have said in an art history paper, had I not already fortunately graduated from college with a degree in semiotics.

Be not embarassed about that liberal arts degree. It turns out that nothing else could better prepare one to discern the heart of Jack Kevorkian than that BA, and no one seems more surprised at this than Ms Birnbach herself. See the awesome effect of this juggernaut of mentation that she forged as an undergrad as it steamrolls all else but the noble object of her praises:

Last week, in advance of Dr. Kevorkian's release from the slammer in Michigan, where he'd spent the previous eight years for assisting in the death of a terminally-ill man afflicted with ALS, I started to think about him. And now I'm a passionate supporter of his work. A spokesman for the Detroit archdiocese which urged his incarceration, said, "For 10 years, Jack Kevorkian's actions resembled those of a pathological serial killer. It will be truly regrettable if he's now treated as a celebrity parolee instead of the convicted murderer he is,"

Aha! The Catholic Church has outsmarted themselves this time! By condemning Kevorkian they really gave away the whole game!

An angel of death or an angel of compassion? I'm voting for the latter. And I wonder, is opposition to euthanasia any different from opposing a woman's right to choose? At some point, we must become the stewards of our bodies. We decide how to feed them, how to dress them, how to medicate them, and whether to take vitamins. If our government wants to get involved in our reproductive lives and our end-of-life plans, will we need to submit our blueprints for tattoos we are considering, piercings we are planning, or whether to grow beards? Will there be an office that will approve (or not) haircuts, permanent waves, and Japanese thermal straightenings? How far can this go, oh party-of-less-government?

Way to run rings around those theocrats logically, sistah! But wait, the pyrotechnic finale is yet to come:

Please give us back our bodies! If you don't tell me how to wear my hair, I won't tell you that you can't have an abortion, or a tattoo. I heard Jack Kevorkian on 60 Minutes tell Mike Wallace, resignedly, that though he still believes in his work, he is forbidden from practicing ever again. It is unlikely that another doctor will take up where Kevorkian left off, at least in the foreseeable future. Of course, that future is filled with federal officials who want you to believe that healthy babies must be killed in order to procure the stem cells needed to solve many of the knottiest medical riddles of our day.

Kevorkian, now 79 years old and a Samuel Beckett look-alike, deserves our thanks for his courageous deeds.

After that last dervish dance of rhetoric you might be temped to think this is parody. Sneer not at the army of ponytailed males and Birkenstocked women reading Waiting for Godot in Starbucks across this preacher plagued nation to confound the Bio-federales and the stem cell spawned hallelujah howling flying monkey-chimeras that do their bidding in a war to enslave our bodily choices. If there is any laughing going on, it's at you. See the debate in the media over euthanasia and the sanctity of life is so long over that they have left the lightweights to deal with the remnant of you who even care about this. And they are just toying with you.

Jack Kevorkian: Larger Than Death

2007-05-30T15:14:00.000-05:00

I've read some nauseating things in the past few months, but this takes the cake.

I can decide when my dog is in enough pain to give him drugs to euthanize him, but where I live, and in all but a single US state, I am not permitted to make the same decision for myself. That fact is ludicrous, but nonetheless true.

Assisted suicide advocate and pioneer Jack Kevorkian gets out of prison soon, thankfully. He was a pioneer in advocating for physician assisted euthanasia, and was severely persecuted by a perverse legal and logical system for his efforts. A system that is permeated by a so called religious culture that advocates capital punishment, and war, yet is often adamantly opposed to stem cell research, and euthanasia - regardless of the circumstances (the entire "culture of life" is a hugely hypocritical fiasco).

I've treated this chasm between the media created in a previous post. But this Wesley Smith article is the best I've seen and it certainly cuts to the chase: Kevorkian was a twisted ghoul who was obsessed with experimenting on living conscious subjects as they died. If you still have any doubts, take a look at some of his paintings. Each one speaks volumes about his character.

Google, Amazon Help Disseminate Illegal Euthanasia Book

2007-03-31T22:24:00.000-05:00

From Sydney Morning Herald

THE outlawed euthanasia manual The Peaceful Pill Handbook will soon be available for download on the internet.

Co-author and euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke made a deal with Google Books in the US last week. He said the download version, illegal in Australia, would cost about $37.

Dr Nitschke said The Peaceful Pill Handbook had been a steady seller on Amazon.com, often ranking in the top 1000 books in a pool of 2 million but Australian customers ran the risk of customs confiscating it.

"The download version will be illegal but people will take that risk because they feel they won't be tracked down," Dr Nitschke said.

"We've heard there has been some trouble with buying it on Amazon . . . from people not receiving books. We suspect they've been intercepted or something's gone wrong."

Sad Euthanasia Case from Oregon

2007-03-22T14:52:00.000-05:00

I'm taking this one on faith because it has the ring of truth to it.

Hopefully publicizing it will expose the abuse and neglect in Oregon that hides behind the smokescreen of Oregon's advocacy of euthanasia

I've left out the names and other contact information from the original post.

What I've written here is a true story that must be told. There are people who have gone to great lengths to suppress the information herein. What I
hope to do is compel those reading it to join with me in demanding
accountability from the responsible parties. An investigation
independent of Oregon's Protection and Advocacy agency is needed to
decide exactly who the responsible parties are.

In early April 2006 I found out that a close friend of mine had stage
3 colon cancer. She had a profound developmental disability and was
non-verbal. In order for critical health care decisions to be made on
her behalf, she needed representatives who knew and cared about her to
gather and interpret medical information and weigh all her options. An
Advocacy Team was assembled including myself, two other staff members
from her day program (who knew her well), and her Individual Service
Plan (ISP) team. This consisted of a management staff representative
of the day program provider (who saw her a few times a year), the
owner of her foster home (who supervised her direct caregiver) and a
county case manager (who was assigned my friend a few months earlier,
and didn't know her). A close friend of the day program representative
was brought on board to act as health care representative (who didn't
know my friend prior to her diagnosis). We all met and decided that
the case manager would look into what was covered under her health
plan, the health care representative would get the medical record and
a 2nd opinion. She committed to providing these documents to the team
as soon as she got them. I said that I would look into treatment
options. Without any of this being accomplished, other than the
information I shared about diet and exercise being critical, she was
placed in hospice about two weeks later.

He describes in great detail the months of getting the runaround by the State until the case reaches it's inevitable end:

She continued in her day program until late November, when it was
announced that the cancer had spread and she was back in hospice. At
10:00 A.M. PST on December 14, 2006 my friend gave in to "pain
killers" prescribed while she was on hospice care. I believe my friend
was euthanized. I believe this was because she was unable to say "yes"
or "no". She was someone with a huge spirit and a small body. She was
someone with a quiet demeanor and a profound developmental disability.
In life she was easy to overlook, but the way she died will not be.

On January 10, I submitted a grievance with the P&A regarding their
handling of my friend's case. After not hearing from the executive
director in 15 working days, I sent the grievance on to the board's
grievance committee. After not hearing from them after 30 days, I can
only assume that my friend's death and her life don't merit their
attention.

If you are wondering whether I can back up my claims here, the answer
is YES. I have documentation that supports this true story and will
share it selectively. What I am looking for in sending this out is
feedback, advice, and legal assistance to ensure my friend's death was
not in vain. I also need help in getting as much exposure to this
story as possible.

I don't think the State of Oregon will ever properly police itself. Hopefully the feds will intervene.

No Palliative Care or Adoption on His Watch!

2007-02-26T13:08:00.000-05:00

This article posted on Expatica gives a good sense of what a moral "bizarro world" the Netherlands has become:

AMSTERDAM - Liberal VVD faction leader Mark Rutte thinks that the Christian democrat CDA and Labour PvdA have conceded too much to the ChristenUnie on so-called medical ethical issues in the coalition accord.

The leader of the Liberal party will level this criticism on Thursday during the parliamentary debate on the government statement by submitting a motion on abortion and a second motion on euthanasia.

Rutte says the new government puts too much emphasis on palliative care in the stance it has now taken on euthanasia. He fears that the government will try to somehow make palliative care into an full-fledged alternative that will make euthanasia superfluous. Rutte thinks euthanasia should remain an "independent alternative" in situations of unbearable and untreatable suffering.

The looming threat of the sick, depressed, elderly and terminally ill getting appropriate couselling and adequate pain medication in Holland isn't the only thing keeping Minheer Rutte up at night:

Rutte also pointed out that the coalition wants to urge pregnant women to consider adoption as an alternative for abortion.

The crusading champion of the Liberal Party won't take this assault on revered Dutch values lying down:

The government plans to conduct a study into the psycho-social effects of abortion, but adoption can also have negative effects on both mother and child, Rutte says. He wants to get a motion passed asking the government to first conduct an investigation into the effects of adoption on children and parents.

Moral Muddle on Medical Murder

2007-02-21T09:24:00.000-05:00

Hemlock Society founder Derek Humphrey had an article on his blog about one of his acolytes who complained to some members of an local euthanasia group that medical serial killer Harold Shipman ruined everything for doctors who used help patients commit suicide.

Doctors no longer help terminally ill patients to enjoy a peaceful death because of the Harold Shipman case, according to a leading consultant.

Speaking in Glasgow, Simon Kenwright, a semi-retired consultant gastroenteologist from East Kent hospital, said fears of prosecution are affecting patient treatment.

In a lecture to 100 members of Friends at the end (Fate), the euthanasia organisation, he said such changes makes the need for legislation to allow assisted dying for the terminally ill more urgent.

Dr Kenwright said that in decades past, doctors would help critically ill patients to shorten their lives peacefully but that the fear of prosecution following the case of Harold Shipman, the serial killer, means such treatment is no longer available.

His call for a change in the law comes less than two weeks after The Herald revealed that a prominent Scottish businesswoman chose to end her life at the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland.

If the claim that illegal assisted suicide was rampant is true, that helps explain why Shipman's body count was so high. How many of his colleagues looked the other way? Were coroners that accustomed to not questioning the cause of death? So how much less safe will the elderly and disabled be if euthanasia is legalized?

The "Monty Hall Morality" of Human Cloning

2007-01-26T10:41:00.000-05:00

Joe Carter over at Evangelical Outpost has an interesting variant on the much maligned "slippery slope" argument as it relates to cloning and organ harvesting.

Last week Story Landis, the interim chair of the National Health Institute’s stem cell task force, testified before the U.S. Senate on President Bush’s policy restricting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Landis opposes the current policy and declared that “science works best when scientists can pursue all avenues of research.”

If the cure for Parkinson’s disease or juvenile diabetes lay behind one of four doors, wouldn’t you want the option to open all four doors at once instead of one door?
Landis' utilitarian view of ethics--the dominant view in the biomedical research community--seems to be some sort of "Monty Hall morality": If the potential for a cure lies behind any door, then we not only should open that path of research but should have the government fund it to the full satisfaction of the grant-writing researchers. Even if, like embryonic stem cell research, the potential for cures is more science fiction than science fact, we should throw open all doors – even if it means throwing obvious moral intuitions out the window.

Landis would, I presume, disagree with my moral qualms about killing human embryos since such entities are human beings but not human persons. Very well. Perhaps I should set aside my moral repugnance, follow the logical conclusion of this line of reasoning, and concede that we should follow all "avenues of research", including the one in which we harvest the organs of non-person clones.

If embryos (and certain fetuses) are not persons, and therefore are not entitled to either legal rights or moral concern, then we can use them in potentially creative ways. For example, in his forthcoming book, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice, Francis Beckwith asks a question that logically follows from this view:

[W]hat would be wrong in a developmental biologist manipulating the development of an early embryo-clone in such a way that what results is an infant without higher brain functions, but whose healthy organs can be used for ordinary transplant purposes or for spare parts for the person from which the embryo was cloned?
For a supporter of abortion or embryo-destructive research* the only logically consistent conclusion is that there is nothing inherently immoral about creating human clones for spare parts. In fact, we could argue that we have a moral obligation to create organ-donating humans clones.**

Joe then goes on to pre-demolish any plausible counter-arguments. I'm glad he's on our side...

UK Catholics Starting to Carry "Do Not Euthanize" Cards

2007-01-14T08:41:00.000-05:00

From The Guardian

Catholics fearing an increasing acceptance of euthanasia in Britain are carrying religious 'ID cards' telling doctors not to withhold liquid from the patient.
Tens of thousands have been sold on the website of the Association of Catholic Women. It reads: 'In case of my admission to hospital, please contact a Roman Catholic priest. I would like my nursing care to include fluids - however administered.'

A General Medical Council spokesman said it was unaware of the card, but insisted that staff and members would be referred to the GMC's religious and ethical guidelines in ensuring respect for patients' religious beliefs

Were I a Catholic Brit, I would not find that last paragraph the least bit reassuring.

Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me When I'm 63?

2007-01-11T14:12:00.000-05:00

Bill Starr is back in the news with this latest stunt in his crusade to kill his wife:

Maureen Starr (63) has Alzheimer's Disease and can no longer recognise her husband, Bill.
As exclusively revealed in last week's Dispatch, Bill (76) wants to end Maureen's life and is campaigning for a change in the law to allow voluntary euthanasia.
He said this week: "I want the Queen to see how a failure by her government to act has left my girl having to live on in a truly pitiful condition.
"This photo expresses my feelings more than I could in a thousand words. It is the face of suffering."
Bill has previously written to Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Lord Chancellor's Office and even Prince Charles to press his case.
Maureen has been a resident of Lowmoor Nursing Home at Kirkby-in-Ashfield for the last 18 months.

The events are related somewhat differently in this lastest account:

...last week, the Dispatch reported on a heartrending visit by Bill to the home with the aim of ending Maureen's life by mercy killing.
"I don't want to say how I planned to do it," said Bill. "But I took two changes of clothes because I was prepared for the police to come and arrest me.
"However a nurse told me my wife's brain is dying. That changed everything because she is now in the hands of God."
Bill stressed that he felt no bitterness towards the home for banning him from seeing his wife alone in case he might still try to kill her.
But he is planning a heartfelt appeal to all the country's general medical practices.
He wants them to withhold sending Alzheimer's patients to homes for the elderly mentally ill until two guarantees are put in place.
One is for the option of voluntary euthanasia and the other is one-to-one care to protect patients from "dangers seen and unseen".

From this addled narrative I've begun to suspect that Bill may in fact be a harmless crank in terms of being a direct danger to his wife. But the threat should be taken seriously for the sake of his wife's safety. And based on the tone of these articles there is a great danger to all the disabled and elderly in the UK that Bill will become the media star that helps usher in euthanasia. It's starting to seem inevitable.

Doctors Starve Stroke Victim in UK

2007-01-10T09:17:00.000-05:00

From The Times

HT: Wesley Smith

An elderly stroke victim begged for a beetroot sandwich and macaroni cheese in hospital but no attempt was made to feed her, an inquest was told yesterday.

Olive Nockels, 91, a former school matron, died after surviving for nearly a month on a subcutaneous drip that delivered only a quarter of the calorie intake specified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a short-term starvation diet.

Even that was stopped for four days when the hospital claimed that she was suffering from excess fluid.

Relatives told the inquest that doctors and the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital had no interest in treating Mrs Nockels after she was admitted in September 2003.

Her grandson, Christopher West, told William Armstrong, the Coroner, at the inquest in Norwich: “The only thing that was said most of the time, as the weeks went on, was that she hadn’t died yet.

“Immediately after her admission it became clear it was their intention not to treat her.”

Mr West, 34, obtained a High Court ex parte injunction on October 6, 2003, forcing doctors to reinstate artificial nutrition and hydration, but the next day Mr Justice Forbes varied the order on an application by David Maisey, a consultant.

In the amended version, nutrition and hydration were to be reinstated only “as far as medically possible”.

Mrs Nockels died on October 10, 2003 — three days after the amendments were made.

Mr West said that doctors told him that the quality of life of his grandmother would be so poor that “it would be in her best interests not to intervene and let her die”. He said: “You don’t just let someone die because you think it’s best for them. It’s inhuman. I would class it as starvation, actually.”

Mrs Nockels’s daughter, Ivy West, told the coroner that her mother’s hearing aid and dentures had been removed — for reasons given to her as comfort and safety. She denied that her mother, from Holt, Norfolk, was incapable of responding when she visited.

“I talked to her every day,” she said. “She would tell me she was cold and that she wanted something to eat. She told me she wanted a beetroot sandwich and some macaroni cheese. She could make decisions for herself.”

Even before they get legal euthanasia, it looks like the NHS is already adopting the "ward clearing" policies of the Netherlands...

Celebrating a Life Dedicated to Life's Defense

2007-01-08T09:11:00.000-05:00

In last week's NRO Robert P George eulogizes Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. If as was the case with me, this farewell is also an introduction, then it will be an inspiring and poignant one.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese was a scholar as notable for her bravery as for her brilliance. After what she described as her “long apprenticeship” in the world of secular liberal intellectuals, it was careful reflection on the central moral questions of our time that led her first to doubt and then to abandon both liberalism and secularism. Needless to say, this did not endear her to her former allies.

At the heart of her doubts about secular liberalism (and what she described as “radical, upscale feminism”) was its embrace of abortion and its (continuing) dalliance with euthanasia. At first, she went along with abortion, albeit reluctantly, believing that women’s rights to develop their talents and control their destinies required its legal permission availability. But Betsey (as she was known by her friends) was not one who could avert her eyes from inconvenient facts. The central fact about abortion is that it is the deliberate killing of a developing child in the womb. For Betsey, euphemisms such as “products of conception,” “termination of pregnancy,” “privacy,” and “choice” ultimately could not hide that fact. She came to see that to countenance abortion is not to respect women’s “privacy” or liberty; it is to suppose that some people have the right to decide whether others will live or die. In a statement that she knew would enflame many on the Left and even cost her valued friendships, she declared that “no amount of past oppression can justify women’s oppression of the most vulnerable among us.”

Betsey knew that public pro-life advocacy would be regarded by many in the intellectual establishment as intolerable apostasy — especially from one of the founding mothers of “women’s studies.” She could have been forgiven for keeping mum on the issue and carrying on with her professional work on the history of the American south. But keeping mum about fundamental matters of right and wrong was not in her character. And though she valued her standing in the intellectual world, she cared for truth and justice more. And so she spoke out ever more passionately in defense of the unborn.

And the more she thought and wrote about abortion and other life issues, the more persuaded she became that the entire secular liberal project was misguided. Secular liberals were not deviating from their principles in endorsing killing whether by abortion or euthanasia in the name of individual “choice”; they were following them to their logical conclusions. But this revealed a profound contradiction at the heart of secular liberal ideology, for the right of some individuals to kill others undermines any ground of principle on which an idea of individual rights or dignity could be founded.

I wish I was familiar with her sooner, but her life is a testimony to both moral and intellectual integrity. It's a rare combination these days.

No Euthanasia Case Too Shady for UK Press

2007-01-04T12:59:00.001-05:00

If doctors are half as cavalier about euthanasia as journalists, this piece about a would-be elderly angel of death is a good example of why "guidelines" in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are worse than useless.

AN ANGUISHED ex-Hucknall man has pleaded with a nursing home to allow him to bring the life of his ill wife to an end.

Bill Starr (76) claims he has been told that his wife, Maureen, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, is now dying.
Hucknall-born Maureen (63) has been a resident of the Lowmoor Home at Kirkby-in-Ashfield for 18 months.
But she no longer recognises her husband and Bill told the Dispatch that he called at the home last week "with the sole intention of releasing my wife's spirit".
He even took a change of clothes because he was prepared for police to arrive and arrest him.
He declined to say how he planned to carry out the mercy killing, which would have been illegal.
Because staff became aware of what Bill proposed to do, he has now been told he can no longer visit Maureen without supervision.
A campaigner for voluntary euthanasia, Bill says he will not be going to see Maureen any more in any case because he cannot bear to watch her condition deteriorate.
He visited the home this week to say his final goodbyes and he is now appealing for friends in Spiritualist churches to pray for Maureen's "early transition from this life".
In the meantime he has written to staff at the home to ask them to make sure Maureen receives a lot of tender loving care.
He says: "It was a heartbreaking decision not to see Maureen any more but I felt it was something I must do.
"I do not really care what happens to me now but I will carry on just for Maureen's sake."

He is quoted as saying in another report:

"My wife is deteriorating before my eyes and it is just heartbreaking to see her in this condition. I want to be able to give her euthanasia and help put her out of this agonising misery.
"I am very angry about this. I have no life and neither does she.
"If this was an animal you would be able to put it out of its misery and the same should apply to humans.
"Her brain is shrinking and it is just downhill all the way from now.
"There needs to be a change in the law to allow euthanasia to go ahead for all those who need it.
"There should be voluntary euthanasia for all those who need it and one-on-one care to protect those who need to be kept from the dangers that they face.
"It has put a massive strain on me but I am determined to remain strong for my wife."

Anguished. Heartbroken. Devasted. Yet angry. And finally...strong. For Maureen. Because really, it's all about her...

No Euthanasia Case Too Shady for UK Press

2007-01-04T12:59:00.000-05:00

If doctors are half as cavalier about euthanasia, this piece about a would-be elderly angel of death is a good example of why "guidelines" in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are worse than useless.

AN ANGUISHED ex-Hucknall man has pleaded with a nursing home to allow him to bring the life of his ill wife to an end.

Bill Starr (76) claims he has been told that his wife, Maureen, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, is now dying.
Hucknall-born Maureen (63) has been a resident of the Lowmoor Home at Kirkby-in-Ashfield for 18 months.
But she no longer recognises her husband and Bill told the Dispatch that he called at the home last week "with the sole intention of releasing my wife's spirit".
He even took a change of clothes because he was prepared for police to arrive and arrest him.
He declined to say how he planned to carry out the mercy killing, which would have been illegal.
Because staff became aware of what Bill proposed to do, he has now been told he can no longer visit Maureen without supervision.
A campaigner for voluntary euthanasia, Bill says he will not be going to see Maureen any more in any case because he cannot bear to watch her condition deteriorate.
He visited the home this week to say his final goodbyes and he is now appealing for friends in Spiritualist churches to pray for Maureen's "early transition from this life".
In the meantime he has written to staff at the home to ask them to make sure Maureen receives a lot of tender loving care.
He says: "It was a heartbreaking decision not to see Maureen any more but I felt it was something I must do.
"I do not really care what happens to me now but I will carry on just for Maureen's sake."

He is quoted as saying in another report:

"My wife is deteriorating before my eyes and it is just heartbreaking to see her in this condition. I want to be able to give her euthanasia and help put her out of this agonising misery.
"I am very angry about this. I have no life and neither does she.
"If this was an animal you would be able to put it out of its misery and the same should apply to humans.
"Her brain is shrinking and it is just downhill all the way from now.
"There needs to be a change in the law to allow euthanasia to go ahead for all those who need it.
"There should be voluntary euthanasia for all those who need it and one-on-one care to protect those who need to be kept from the dangers that they face.
"It has put a massive strain on me but I am determined to remain strong for my wife."

Anguished. Heartbroken. Devasted. Yet angry. And finally...strong. For Maureen. Because really, it's all about her...

More on Down's Syndrome Testing

2007-01-03T10:24:00.000-05:00

Steve Ertelt's LifeNews featured the report of obstetricians pushing for more Down's Syndrome testing that I posted about yesterday. There was some fascinating analysis including this view from the UK:

Most British doctors who are treating pregnant women with unborn children diagnosed with Down syndrome are telling their patients to have abortions. Official figures show as many as 94 percent of women with babies with Down syndrome are having abortions.

The story of this couple seems to be typical:

Green's obstetrician informed her that her child would grow up to be "mentally retarded," she told the London Daily Mail newspaper. But the 35 year-old rejected her doctor's advice to have an abortion at 35 weeks into the pregnancy.

Two weeks after the suggestion she have an abortion, she gave birth to a baby boy she named Harrison. He is now a much-loved son and the Daily Mail reports the two year-old just started nursery school.
Green described to the London newspaper what happened when she and her 33 year-old fireman husband Tim were given the news.

"The doctor said, "I have some bad news -- your baby has Down syndrome,'" she said. "We were both in total shock but this was considerably worsened when he said, "You can have a termination.'"

"My baby was fully-formed and his name was decided. I was appalled," she told the Daily Mail.

Green accused the doctor of pressuring her to have an abortion by telling her only negative things about having a mentally handicapped baby.

"The doctor urged us to think about the termination and how having a baby with "mental retardation" would affect our lives," she said. "He listed only the potential negatives about Down syndrome, without giving us any information to read for a more balanced view."

"The midwife tried to interject and offer us some leaflets but he talked her down. The frightening thing is, had we been told by the same doctor about Down syndrome earlier in the pregnancy, there is a chance we might have decided to abort," she said.

Still, Green has no regrets about her decision to keep Harrison.

"We don't know what we'd do without Harrison - he's so adored," she said.