Archive for the 'euthanasia' Category

The Real Face of “Choice”

Published by
tieki rae
at July 28, 2008 in Pro-Life and euthanasia. 14 Comments

Oregon Offers Terminal Patients Doctor-Assisted Suicide Instead of Medical Care

PORTLAND, Ore. — Some terminally ill patients in Oregon who turned to their state for health care were denied treatment and offered doctor-assisted suicide instead, a proposal some experts have called a “chilling” corruption of medical ethics.

Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon’s state-run health plan for help.

Lane Individual Practice Association (LIPA), which administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County, responded to Stroup’s request with a letter saying the state would not cover Stroup’s pricey treatment, but would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide.

“It dropped my chin to the floor,” Stroup told FOX News. “[How could they] not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to pay to end my life?”

The letter, which has been sent to other terminal patients throughout Oregon, follows guidelines established by the state legislature.

Oregon doesn’t cover life-prolonging treatment unless there is better than a 5 percent chance it will help the patients live for five more years — but it covers doctor-assisted suicide, defining it as a means of providing comfort, no different from hospice care or pain medication.

“It’s chilling when you think about it,” said Dr. William Toffler, a professor of family medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. “It absolutely conveys to the patient that continued living isn’t worthwhile.”

In issuing their latest Prioritized List of Health Services, state officials reported a new emphasis on preventive care and cost effectiveness. Dr. John Sattenspiel, LIPA’s senior medical director, defended the measures.

“I have had patients who would consider knowing that this is part of that range of comfort care or palliative care services that are still available to them, they would be comforted by that,” Sattenspiel said. “It really depends on the individual patient.”

Toffler called it a callous practice that went against medical convention. “It corrupts the consistent medical ethic that has been in place for 2,000 years,” he said. “It’s absolutely breathtaking.”

Oregon is the only state to legalize doctor-assisted suicide, which came into effect in 1997. Since that time, there have been 341 reported cases where doctors provided lethal doses of medicine to patients to end their lives.

Oregon voters have upheld the “Death with Dignity” law three times, and Sattenspiel says it is the state’s duty to inform patients of all their legal options.

For Stroup, however, suicide was never an option. He fought back, and the Oregon Health Plan eventually reversed its decision and is now paying for his chemotherapy, giving him hope he’ll be around a little longer for his 80-year-old mother and five grandchildren.

But I thought assisted suicide was all about empowering the rational individual to make end of life choices?  This seems a lot like what those crazy pro-life lobbyists and bio-ethicists have been saying - devaluing terminally ill or disabled individuals, making subjective quality of life judgments, and starting down the road to forced euthanasia.

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American Exceptionalism?

Published by
Roxeanne de Luca
at June 7, 2008 in Obama, Pro-Life, euthanasia and money. 4 Comments

Jeff Jacoby on the Senate Democrats proposal to tax oil companies:

There is something seriously wrong, all right - the economic shallowness of politicians who believe that when oil companies prosper they should be penalized. Or who imagine that the way to bring gasoline prices down is to jack the oil industry’s taxes up.

A note to those opposed to profiteering: people are in business to make a profit - not for our good, not for the good of the country, but to make a profit.  More importantly, companies assume the risks of loss as well as of profits.  Until we think we ought to limit losses (with the corresponding perverse incentive to run a bloated and inefficient business), we ought not limit profits.  Until we are ready for a regulated, socialistic economy - letting go of the capitalist ideal that made America the wealthiest nation in the world - we ought to encourage profit.  The desire to make a profit has driven America forward - skyscrapers, airplanes, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, modern medicine - which has resulted in far more health, freedom, and prosperity than “from each according to his ability, to each according to his means.”

Speaking of America as a shining nation - what’s up with offering people euthanasia but not medical care?  This is the twenty-first century; this is America.  This is not a third-world country where people die because, well, life is expensive and there isn’t money to go around.  Killing people is cheap (unless they are on Death Row).  It is also the easy solution to a problem that has vexed physicians, psychiatrists, and caregivers from the beginning of time: how to deal with a sick, hopeless patient who is in horrible pain.  This blogger fears that the advent of euthanasia will remove the nascant incentive to provide terminal patients with pain relief, mental health care, and pallative treatment until natural death.  There is little reason to do that when the patient can just die, much as there is little reason to provide pregnant university students with resources, support, and an education when they can just get an abortion.  We have the chance to not make the mistakes made in the 1960s - taking the second-place option in leiu of the best and most humane - and, in this blogger’s opinion, the battle against euthanasia ought to be fought now, before the premise of euthanasia becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Poorly Conceived Ideas

Published by
Roxeanne de Luca
at May 24, 2008 in Pro-Life, euthanasia, offbeat news and rant. 5 Comments

The Washington Post discusses how pregnant women are using  more luxury services than ever.  Now, this blogger doesn’t have anything against pregnant women getting all the attention and affection they can: after all, nine months of morning sickness, swollen ankles, and back aches - all for the sake of another human - ought to earn a girl some affection.  Nevertheless, it seems as if the women who consume such services do so at the expense of their husbands.  Husbands are described as “slinking into” a baby spa; their only function is to earn the salary that enables them to spend hundreds of dollars on their wives.  What ever happened to romance - a candle light dinner at home, a foot massage from the one you love?  Why replace it with an unprecedented level of selfishness, i.e.:

Event planner Jami Pennings stayed on a personal chef service while breast-feeding her daughter, delivered in December. “I knew the baby had to get good nutrition, and whether I did was pretty secondary. I was consuming it, but it was really for her.”

This knowledge also assuaged the guilt she felt over watching her husband scrounge for cold cereal or takeout every night while she ate gourmet home-delivered meals. She had to. For the baby.

Because, ya know, it’s downright impossible to be pregnant and throw a steak on the grill.  Apparently, it’s also impossible to be pregnant while seeing your husband as more than an ATM machine.

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New York City plans to deploy a special group of ambulances to recover organs from people who have died suddenly.  Saving lives is a noble goal.  Let’s be clear, though, that no one has a right to the organs of another person, no matter how great their need.  If an organ can help a dying person live but one more minute, or live with an iota less of pain, then our society has the moral obligation to ensure that no one takes his organs from him. 

Once we lose sight of the fact that humans have an absolute right to their own bodies, we’ve moved into the nightmare land where everyone’s right to their bodies, their minds, their labour, and their lives is conditional.  The logical conclusion would be to harvest the organs from the young and healthy in order to “save lives,” or to create human life for the sole purpose of ending it.  If we are to believe that it is moral and ethical to prematurely end the life of a dying person in order to “save” another, why not harvest the organs from the disabled? the elderly?  Wouldn’t it be entirely selfish of me to continue living with my own organs, when I could allow two lungs, a heart, a liver, a pancreas, a stomach, two kidneys, blood, skin, and bone marrow to be harvested to save a dozen lives? 

But wait!  Have no fear!  There are ethical guidelines that would save us from having our organs harvested out of our dying bodies:

Dubler and Burdick, the federal official, said the procedures to be performed in the ambulances and once the person arrives at the hospital are often done now in hospitals to preserve organs, and any ethical concerns could be addressed with strict guidelines.

“Strict guidelines.”  Liberals don’t believe in the criminal justice system, religion, or family as a means of controlling behaviour… but they sure have a lot of faith in the regulatory state.  Obviously, no one - ever - breaches regulations.  Especially not when it would make them heroes - those who brilliantly obtain organs to save the lives of people who have been waiting for those organs like children wait for Christmas.  Regulations always prevent people from doing wrong, so they would naturally prevent people from playing Santa Claus at the expense of their fellow human beings.  Right.  Just send your tax dollars to the nice folks who - we swear - will not rip your beating heart out of your body, because, ya know, it’s against the regulations.

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Not-So-Persistent Vegetative State

Published by
tieki rae
at March 8, 2007 in Pro-Life, Terri Schiavo and euthanasia. 4 Comments

Colo. Woman Who Fell Into Coma 6 Years Ago Awakens For 3 Days,
Talks To Family
Woman Who Woke Up After 6 Years Relapses
Woman awakes after 6-year coma, slips back

This was a pretty popular story yesterday. However, I missed most of the news as it was actually breaking for an ironically related reason, which I will expound about in a minute.

At first, the media described Christa Lilly as being in a “persistent vegetative state.” However, realizing the unpleasant implications of a “vegetable” waking up, they soon alternated between her being in a coma or “minimally conscious.” Christa Lilly’s story is both heartbreaking and encouraging, inspiring and incredibly frustrating. Her mother, Minnie Smith, has been caring for her since 2000, when Christa suffered a heart attack and a stroke, and became a “vegetable” in the eyes of the medical community. Clearly, Minnie Smith considers her daughter to be a valuable human being, not a vegetable, since she has devoted her time to caring for Christa. What a blessing to be able to visit with Christa, even for a short three days.

Of course, doctors are mystified. They are shocked. They can’t explain it. Most importantly, as the KKTV story emphasizes, “In her current condition Dr. Bjork says Christa is minimally conscious, a slightly better state than other notable cases like Terry Schiavo.”

Terri Schiavo. To this day, I cannot even think about Terri’s murder without shock, disbelief, and mostly anger. At the end of this month, it will have been exactly two years since Terri was brutally murdered by her “husband,” Michael Schiavo, with the assistance of the courts, the media, and the medical community. Terri slowly died over a period of 13 days from dehydration and starvation. It was nothing sort of the most cruel and unusual punishment for a disabled woman who did nothing wrong, except for marrying Michael Schiavo.

Terri has been on my mind lately because for the past few months, I have been planning and organizing on behalf of the Cornell Coalition for Life to bring Bobby Schindler (Terri’s brother) to Cornell. Last night, Bobby came to speak about Terri’s story and the Schindler family’s fight to save her life. Their story honestly breaks my heart every time I hear it or learn more about it. I cannot imagine the strength it takes for the Schindler family to travel around the country speaking out about the horrific murder of their daughter and sister.

The misinformation propagated by the mainstream media was nothing short of revolting. The stubborn refusal of the courts to consider any evidence contrary to what Michael Schiavo presented was completely unjust. The silence and even approval from the medical community at-large and those who would call themselves “bio-ethicists” was disgraceful.

Listening to Bobby really gave me a better perspective of exactly how important this issue is to the pro-life movement. In the past, it has been easy for me to focus mainly on abortion because the thought of innocent unborn children being brutally murdered horrifies me. However, I am starting to realize that the threat euthanasia poses to the disabled persons of the world is just as horrific. These people are also often incapable of speaking for themselves. They are declared non-persons, “vegetables” of less worth than animals, merely because they are disabled.

I would encourage anyone who questions exactly what happened to Terri Schiavo to check out the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation’s webpage. This is not an issue that can be ignored. There are tens of thousands of individuals in a so-called “Persistent Vegetative State” that, like Christa Lilly, are being cared for daily by their parents or close family members. These family members are frightened about what will happen if they pass away before their son or daughter does. When these disabled individuals become wards of the state, who is to say what will happen to them? Will starvation become an acceptable alternative to providing love and compassion to the poor and needy? These are some of the questions that Bobby Schindler brought up. What struck me the most was the way he ended his speech. “Are we going to care for the disabled and show them love and compassion? Or, are we going to look for easier ways to justify killing them?”

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