A More Perfect Death

By ROSS DOUTHAT

As if there weren’t enough end-of-life anxieties floating around the health care debate, the Montana Supreme Court has chosen this month to weigh whether their state should join nearby Oregon and Washington in endorsing physician-assisted suicide.

What’s at stake is the right to voluntary euthanasia, not the sort of involuntary plug-pulling that some Republicans have claimed is concealed in the finer print of the current health care reform proposals. But you don’t have to share Sarah Palin’s death panel fears to see perils lurking at the intersection of physician-assisted suicide and health care reform.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/opinion/07douthat.html?_r=1

Justifying one's existence

Barbara Kay

Choosing to live out one’s natural life will soon be as unpopular as refusing an abortion.
Have you noticed that the subject of euthanasia/ assisted suicide is picking up momentum -- that it is, so to speak, taking on a life of its own? I mean in particular that we seem to be approaching one of those interesting tipping points in public debate where the tone of those supporting a once-shocking idea is shifting from defensive to offensive.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/justifying_ones_existence/

The duty to die

Sheila Liaugminas

It has already been a growing threat under the influence of the ‘right to die’ movement and spreading ‘futility care laws’.
Now it’s looming larger in the 1,018 page health care proposal as written, and more Americans are starting to become aware that it practically mandates rationing that will discriminate against the most vulnerable.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/the_duty_to_die/

The notion of a right to a 'good death' undermines society

If my life has no objective value, then why should anyone else care for it, asks Vincent Nichols.
By Vincent Nichols
We have seen a significant defeat in Parliament for proposals to legalise assisted suicides, and learnt of the joint suicides at the Dignitas apartment in Switzerland of the eminent conductor Sir Edward Downes, and his wife, Lady Downes. While there are many ethical, medical and legal issues surrounding assisted suicide, at its heart lies the notion that we have an absolute moral entitlement to have whatever kind of death we choose. This is surely the triumph of the philosophy that proclaims individual rights above all other considerations and the relativist insistence that what is good is a matter of personal judgment.

The consequences of this attitude lie at the root of the weakening of social structures, including the decline of the family as the core unit, the rise of anti-social behaviour, the pursuit of profit at all cost and the increasing intolerance of non-materialist, philosophical or ethical views. It can be summarised as the age of convenience; the pursuit of what we want despite its cost and impact on others.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5845658/The-notion-of-a-right-to-a-good-death-undermines-society.html

Giving the green light to suicide

Kevin Yuill
Revelations that non-terminally ill people were euthanised in Switzerland calls into question the ‘right to die’ campaign.
The concern about suicidal people with non-fatal illnesses travelling to Dignitas in Switzerland – where they were euthanised – underlines some of the fatal flaws in the case for legalising euthanasia here in Britain and elsewhere in Europe
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7072/

When the Right to Die Becomes a Duty

By Colleen Carroll Campbell

Linda Fleming, a 66-year-old, legally bankrupt cancer patient living alone in Sequim, Wash., recently became the first person to kill herself under her state's new assisted-suicide law. As in neighboring Oregon, where a similar law has facilitated more than 400 suicides since 1997, the measure that paved the way for Fleming's death allows suicidal adults to obtain lethal prescriptions as long as they are competent and have been diagnosed with a terminal condition by two physicians.

http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.3838/pub_detail.asp

Canada considers doctor-assisted suicide a third time

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

Canadians will again consider a euthanasia bill.
It will mark the third attempt at getting the bill passed, one that goes much further than doctor-assisted suicide in the United States. Alex Schadenberg heads the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition in Canada.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=537882

Past your “use by” date? What’s next?

Margaret Somerville

Dying human beings are not disposable products.
A private member's bill to legalize assisted suicide is being studied in the Canadian parliament. And it's been reported that police in Minnesota expect to charge William Melchert-Dinkel, a nurse, for allegedly using the Internet to encourage Ottawa resident, 18-year-old Nadia Kajouji, who committed suicide, to kill herself. So far, at least, no one has argued that this was or should be ethically or legally acceptable.

That is not the case in relation to George and Betty Coumbias, two 73-year-old British Columbia residents. George suffers from serious heart disease; Betty is healthy. But in Betty's words, "I don't think I can face life without (George), and since we read about Dignitas (a Swiss organization that assists people to commit suicide), we felt what would be better than to die together, you know, to die in each other's arms?"

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/past_your_use_by_date_whats_next/

Archbishop Burke's Keynote Address

So much of Archbishop Burke's address at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast was fantastic, but here is just a piece of it:

"6. Over the past several months, our nation has chosen a path which more completely denies any legal guarantee of the most fundamental human right, the right to life, to the innocent and defenseless unborn. Our nation, which had its beginning in the commitment to safeguard and promote the inalienable right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” for all, without boundary, is more and more setting arbitrary limits to her commitment (cf. The Declaration of Independence: Action of Second Continental Congress, 4 July 1776, in The Constitution of the United States with the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2002, p. 81). Those in power now determine who will or will not be accorded the legal protection of the most fundamental right to life. First the legal protection of the right to life is denied to the unborn and, then, to those whose lives have become burdened by advanced years, special needs or serious illness, or whose lives are somehow judged to be unprofitable or unworthy.

7. What is more, those in power propose to force physicians and other healthcare professionals, in other words, those with a particular responsibility to protect and foster human life, to participate, contrary to what their conscience requires, in the destruction of unborn human lives, from the first or embryonic stage of development to the moment of birth. Our laws may soon force those who have dedicated themselves to the care of the sick and the promotion of good health to give up their noble life work, in order to be true to the most sacred dictate of their consciences. What is more, if our nation continues down the path it has taken, healthcare institutions operating in accord with the natural moral law, which teaches us that innocent human life is to be protected and fostered at all times and that it is always and everywhere evil to destroy an innocent human life, will be forced to close their doors.

8. At the same time, the fundamental society, that is, the family, upon which the life of our nation is founded and depends, is under attack by legislation which redefines marriage to include a relationship between two persons of the same sex and permits them to adopt children. In the same line, it is proposed to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. At the root of the confusion and error about marriage is the contraceptive mentality – which would have us believe that the inherently procreative nature of the conjugal union can, in practice, be mechanically or chemically eliminated, while the marital act remains unitive. It cannot be so. With unparalleled arrogance, our nation is choosing to renounce its foundation upon the faithful, indissoluble, and inherently procreative love of a man and a woman in marriage, and, in violation of what nature itself teaches us, to replace it with a so-called marital relationship, according to the definition of those who exercise the greatest power in our society."

Sorry that's a lot, but it lays out the major crises to the Culture of Life we are facing now.
Read the full speech here. (Click the banner near the top.)

Signs of things to come in medicine

Sheila Liaugminas

Currently happening largely under radar, in Montana.
Physicians in Montana could be facing “kill-on-demand” orders from patients who want to commit suicide if a district court judge’s opinion pending before the state Supreme Court is affirmed.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/signs_of_things_to_come_in_medicine/

ADF joins in Montana battle against euthanasia

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has filed a brief along with others to overturn a Montana judge's order claiming a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide.

In October 2007, two men -- along with some physicians and a suicide-advocacy group -- filed suit in Montana to decriminalize doctor-assisted suicide. Last December a judge found a "right" to physician-assisted suicide in the state constitution. The state appealed that ruling.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=515960

Doctor-assisted suicide legalized, ignored

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

More than four months after a Montana judge legalized doctor-assisted suicide, no one in "Big Sky Country" has used it for end-of-life issues.

Jeff Laszloffy with the Montana Family Foundation believes Montana doctors want nothing to do with it.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=487796

Wrong way to relieve pain

Sheila Liaugminas

Disguised as compassion, the euthanasia movement is trying to invade the health care system to help end suffering. By ending lives. We know this, but Wesley Smith explains more in this article from my bioethics file. It’s getting more and more timely.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/wrong_way_to_relieve_pain/

Dignitas to expand suicide service from the ill to the well

In the first broadcast interview he has given in five years, the Swiss founder of the controversial assisted suicide service Dignitas has defended suicide as a "marvellous possibility". In an interview with the BBC, Luigi Minelli said that "Suicide is a very good possibility to escape a situation which you can't alter." And he dismissed the notion that his service should only be available to the terminally ill: "It is not a condition to have a terminal illness. Terminal illness is a British obsession. We are not a clinic. As a human rights lawyer I am opposed to the idea of paternalism. We do not make decisions for other people."

http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/8542/

Terri’s day

Sheila Liaugminas 31 March 2009

Her legacy is only growing stronger.
Four years ago today, Terri Schiavo succumbed after being starved and dehydrated to death by court order. The final days of her ordeal and her family’s ripped into American consciousness when the media no longer had any choice but to cover the story in her last days that some of us had been covering for months in ‘alternative’ media, both print and radio. But the mainstream media never got the story right, and to this day they continue to refer to Terri, but with lies and distortions to advance an agenda that promotes abortion to euthanasia. Because the other thing that was ripped was the fabric of this culture that is now accepting the recently unacceptable, all under the language of ‘rights’.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/terris_day/

The Nazis did this

Sheila Liaugminas

So did slave owners.
De-personalize a certain class of human beings, and you can use, abuse or eliminate them however you choose.
That’s exactly what’s happening in the new civil rights movement that covers the pre-born to the not-yet-dead. One of the strategies is to change the language, including “diagnoses” like “persistent vegetative state”. No one wants to think of a human being as a vegetable.
Good. Don’t. Because no one is. Tell that to Jane Brody.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/the_nazis_did_this/

Instinct to protect

Sheila Liaugminas

This sounds like science fiction. Only I can’t imagine making it up.
It was jarring the day I read it. But even more so after considering the case of Baby OT (see post below).
A couple is suing a hospital for keeping their baby alive.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/instinct_to_protect/

The last great act of living

Margaret Somerville
Legalising euthanasia would deny the full potential of the human spirit.

An extraordinary public exchange of letters between two Canadians over the past six months has illuminated in a very personal way the profound issues posed by death and all that leads to it. Ian Brown, who writes for the Globe and Mail, has a disabled son, Walker. Jean Vanier is the founder of L’Arche, a world-wide organization that provides a refuge and life-long home for intellectually disabled people. In their latest exchange of letters Brown asked Vanier, “Are you fearful of death?” Vanier replied, “No, I cannot say I am”.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_last_great_act_of_living/

Pro-life 'hero' unable to stop legalized killing

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

Luxembourg has become the third nation to legalize doctor-assisted suicide. While that isn't good news to pro-lifers, there is a pro-life hero in the story.

The vote on the bill was 30-26, but it was stalled for some time. Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition explains. "The fact is that they've now gone to extreme measures even to carry this out because the Grand Duke of Luxembourg originally refused to sign the bill into law," he says. That forced Parliament to take drastic action to make it legal. "They went as far as to change their constitution in order to make sure that he didn't need to sign the bill into law for it to become law," says the pro-life activist.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=458380

Some doctors oppose 'death-on-demand,' some don't

Charlie Butts and Marty Cooper - OneNewsNow

Washington's doctor-assisted suicide law goes into effect today.

Doctors will now be able to prescribe, by a patient's request, lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients with less than six months to live. However, many doctors are hesitant to speak publicly about their stance on the "Death with Dignity" law, according to The Associated Press.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=436258