11 posts tagged “physician assisted suicide”
A one year old boy, who could have a tracheotomy, be taken home from the hospital and live his life, may have his ventilator removed at the wishes of his mother and the HOSPITAL TRUST PAYING FOR HIS CARE, because his severe physical disability has been deemed 'intolerable suffering'. His father disagrees and is fighting for his son's life.
"'Rational' Suicide Advocates Push Assisted Suicide in Mental Health Journals"- A podcast edition of bioethicist Wesley J. Smith's 'What It Means to be Human'
'Quality of life'. Brothers and sisters, can we think about that phrase for a moment? Can we think about what we are saying when we are using it? Can we, as Christians, really use that phrase?
Montana judge: Man has right to assisted suicide
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A Montana judge has ruled that doctor-assisted suicides are legal in the state, a decision likely to be appealed as the state argues that the Legislature, not the court, should decide whether terminally ill patients have the right to take their own life.
Judge Dorothy McCarter issued the ruling late Friday in the case of a Billings man with terminal cancer, who had sued the state with four physicians that treat terminally ill patients and anonprofit patients' rights group.
"The Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity, taken together, encompass the right of a competent terminally (ill) patient to die with dignity," McCarter said in the ruling.
It also said that those patients had the right to obtain self-administered medications to hasten death if they find their suffering to be unbearable, and that physicians can prescribe such medication without fear of prosecution.
"The patient's right to die with dignity includes protection of the patient's physician from liability under the state's homicide statutes," the judge wrote.
Attorney General Mike McGrath said Saturday that attorneys in his office would discuss the ruling next week and expected the state will appeal the ruling......The state attorney general's office had argued that intentionally taking a life was illegal, and that the issue was the responsibility of the state Legislature.
Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Anders had argued the state has no evaluation process, safeguards or regulations to provide guidance or oversight for doctor-assisted suicide. The state also said it was premature to declare constitutional rights for a competent, terminally ill patient because the terms "competent" or "terminally ill" had yet to be defined.
The ruling noted that doctors are often asked to "determine the competency of their patients for the purposes of guardianship and other legal proceedings."
"Whether a patient is terminally ill can also be determined by the physician as an integral component of the physician-patient relationship," McCarter wrote.
McCarter's ruling makes Montana the third state after Oregon and Washington to allow doctor-assisted suicides. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that terminally ill patients have no constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide but did nothing to prevent states from legalizing the process.
So, apparently, a judge can go a make a decision like this all by herself... How? It's unbelievable.
The Media's Love for Suicide Outlaws
On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Wesley J. Smith takes a look at the media’s fawning treatment of suicide advocates. What does a reporter see when he visits the home of a suicide facilitator? Strangely and sadly, he often sees a hero.
Listen in as bioethicist Wesley J. Smith shows how journalism has become a prime mover in the culture of death, to the point that its terminal nonjudgmentalism cannot be trusted.
What We Are Becoming With the Culture of Death
On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, bioethicist and Discovery Institute senior fellow Wesley J. Smith takes a look at our culture’s "terminal nonjudgmentalism." How far have we come as a society when we lose the will to save suicidal people's lives? Smith examines two outrageous cases from the UK,
one where doctors refused to save a dying girl and another where a disabled man’s parents helped took him to Switzerland to commit suicide. What does the advocacy of death culture turn us into? Tune in and find out.
In this episode, Smith quotes a study that says after 5 years, the depression of those who've acquired a severe disability later in life levels to the same as those without disabilities. Something to think about STRONGLY when it comes to the debate over assisted suicide
A campaign has launched in oppositon to assisted suicide. If you oppose assisted suicide, take the pledge as either a physician, medical caregiver, or concerned citizen not to participate in this practice. Please feel free to come back here and tell me about it.
A glimmer of hope
From SpokesmanReview.com:
Medical providers say they won't assist with suicides
While Washington voters made it legal for doctors to help terminally ill residents end their lives, opponents of the assisted suicide measure indicated Wednesday they will continue to resist the practice.
Initiative 1000 won with strong support Tuesday, but doctors don't have to help their patients make that final act, says the Washington State Medical Association.
Furthermore, Eastern Washington's largest hospital system, Providence Health and Services, will forbid physicians from helping patients die at its hospitals, nursing homes and assisted care centers."Providence will not support physician-assisted suicide within its ministries," the owner of Sacred Heart Medical Center and Holy Family Hospital said in a prepared statement. "This position is grounded in our basic values of respect for the sacredness of life, compassionate care of dying and vulnerable persons, and respect for the integrity of medical, nursing and allied health professions. We do not believe health care providers should ever be put in a position of aiding a patient in taking his or her own life."
The new Washington law is set to take effect in July 2009 after state regulators write rules to guide the practice.
Read the rest of the article here.
From LifeNews.com:
Olympia, WA (LifeNews.com) -- The state of Washington has joined Oregon to become the second state in the nation to legalize the grisly practice of assisted suicide. Voters in the northwestern state approved I-1000 despite strong opposition from pro-life groups, doctors organizations, disability rights activists and Catholic voters.
With 42 percent of the vote counted in the state, I-1000 carried with the support of 58 percent of voters compared with 42 percent who opposed assisted suicide.
Opponents of assisted suicide had a hard time competing with the money thrown at them from the pro-euthanasia groups that outspent them as much as 12-1 thanks to out-of-state money.
Read rest of story here
From Wesley J Smith's blog Secondhand Smoke:
Anyone who still says "it can't happen here," isn't paying attention. It is happening here, and it will happen here increasingly unless there is a greater commitment shown by those with means who oppose these agendas to reversing the current course.
I just don't know that I can finish this post today.
No, not really. More on Washington's assisted suicide initiative. But, gay rights seem to capture more attention.
From Fox News:
