01Feb 2020 by Post

In Washington State, Assisted Suicide “Protections” Become “Barriers”

assisted suicide, barriers, Death with Dignity Act, guidelines, HB 2419, Medicine, protections, self-administration, University of Washington, Washington State
Razzle-dazzle them. That’s what good carney pitchmen do to sell their wares. So do assisted-suicide advocates. When pitching legalization, they solemnly promise that they have written, Oh, so “protective guidelines” into the legislation to prevent abuse. Then, once the law is safely in place, advocates grouse that the guidelines they touted are “obstacles” or “barriers” that unjustly prevent suffering people from accessing assisted suicide. Eventually, political agitation begins to amend the law to make things, shall we say, more flexible. A Slippery Slope We see this slippery slope process in action in Washington. Assisted suicide has been legal there for several years, and now a bill has been filed to require a university study into alleged “barriers facing Washington’s residents to the Death with Dignity Act,” and to have that…
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25Jan 2020 by Post

Pressuring a Hospice to Kill

and organ-transplant centers, Angeline Ireland, assisted suicide, Big Government, British Columbia, Canada, caring, conscientious objection, Delta Hospice Society, dementia, doctors, ethics, euthanasia, freedom of conscience, hospice, hospice palliative care, killing, MAiD, medical assistance in dying, Medicine, memory-support facilities, minister of health, nursing homes, organ harvesting, patients, pediatric euthanasia, pediatric hospitals, podiatry, psychiatric institutions, Quebec, religious beliefs, socialism, socialized medicine, United States
Should hospice professionals be forced to assist the suicides of their patients who want to die? Not too long ago, the answer to that question would have been an emphatic “Of course not!” Hospice is not about making people dead. Rather, it seeks to help terminally ill patients live well through intensive medical, spiritual, psychological, and social treatments to alleviate the pain and emotional suffering that dying people and their families may experience. Don’t tell that to the provincial government of British Columbia. After the Supreme Court of Canada conjured a right for anyone diagnosed with a serious medical condition that causes “irremediable suffering” to receive lethal-injection euthanasia, British Columbia passed a law requiring all medical facilities that receive at least 50 percent of their funding from the government to…
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11Jan 2020 by Post

In Canada, Euthanasia as “Boon” to Organ Donation

assisted suicide, Belgium, bioethics, bodies, Canada, disabled, donations, euthanasia, MAiD, medically assisted deaths, Medicine, mentally ill, Netherlands, Ontario, organ donation, Ottawa Citizen, patients, Ronnie Gavsie, Trillium Gift of Life Network
My very first anti-euthanasia column, published in Newsweek, warned that societal acceptance of assisted suicide/euthanasia would eventually include organ harvesting “as a plum to society.” I was called an alarmist and a fear-monger, but alas, I was right. In Belgium and the Netherlands, mentally ill and disabled people are killed in hospitals at their request, and then, their bodies are harvested — with the success of the procedures written up with all due respect in organ-transplant medical journals. Our Cousins to the North Our closest cultural cousins in Canada are enthusiastically following the same utilitarian path, not only allowing organ harvesting to be conjoined with euthanasia, but “medically assisted death” is being boosted increasingly as “a boon.” Note the celebratory lede in this Ottawa Citizen story: Ontarians who opt for…
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15Dec 2019 by Post

Media in a Swoon over Death Doctor and His Suicide Machine

assisted suicide, Australia, Bon Jovi, cancer, elderly people, euthanasia, euthanasia drugs, human vivisection, Jack Kevorkian, Katherine Jean Lopez, Medicine, Nancy Crick, National Review, Philip Nitschke, Sarco, suicide pills, The Economist
The mainstream media mostly went head over heels over Jack Kevorkian’s ghoulish assisted suicide campaign, rarely mentioning that his ultimate goal was to gain the right to conduct human vivisection on people being euthanized. Suicide Pod Machine The Australian Kevorkian — Philip Nitschke — hasn’t advocated that. But he has traveled the world teaching people how to commit suicide, published a suicide recipe he invented made of common household ingredients, and pushed a pernicious death-on-demand philosophy. Now The Economist swoons over “the bad boy of the euthanasia movement,” touting his new suicide pod machine in a profile of a length few presidents have received. From “A Design for Death”: My host’s name is Philip Nitschke and he’s invented a machine called Sarco. Short for sarcophagus, the slick, spaceship-like pod has a seat…
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16Nov 2019 by Post

Bioethics Coming to Elementary and High Schools?

abortion, animals, assisted suicide, bioethics, Culture & Ethics, dead donor rule, elementary school, end of life, euthanasia, futile care, high school, ideology, Jacob M. Appel, Leon Kass, Medicine, morality, organ harvesting, philosophy, prenatal screening, President’s Council on Bioethics, puberty, religion, Scientific American, sex education, students, textbooks
Bioethicist Jacob M. Appel wants the bioethics movement to educate your children about the policy and personal conundrums that involve medical care and health public policy. He claims that “most of us give little thought” to issues that may arise, such as end-of-life care and prenatal screening. Then, when an issue does come up, people are unprepared to make wise and informed decisions. From, “The Silent Crisis of Bioethics Illiteracy,” published in Scientific American: Change will only occur when bioethics is broadly incorporated into school curricula [at an early age] and when our nation’s thought leaders begin to place emphasis on the importance of reflecting meaningfully in advance upon these issues… Often merely recognizing such issues in advance is winning the greater part of the battle. Just as we teach…
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