Review by Bill Murphy
Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers; What We Should Know About Talking to People We Don’t Know, Little, Brown and Company, 2019
In 2016, in small town Texas, Officer Brian Encinia pulled over a young black woman, Sandra Bland, for a minor traffic infraction. The interaction becomes heated and Sandra is incarcerated. Three days later, she is dead in her jail-cell.
Malcolm Gladwell examines this case in light of ways we commonly mis-interpret strangers.
| German monument to the euthanasia victims |
By Mark Sutherland
“Your son was released from a severe and incurable disease.”
“He died quickly and without pain. Considering his serious and incurable illness, death meant relief for him.”
“Considering her severe and incurable illness, life was agony for the deceased. You must therefore understand her death as deliverance.” [1]
These short sentences contrast with the enormity of the suffering of the incurably sick. They are typical of a narrative which makes it hard to understand why anyone could oppose the euthanasia bill to be tabled in the New South Wales Parliament later this year, a narrative which damns its opponents as lacking in compassion.
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
A California federal judge has rejected a preliminary injunction asking the court to permit euthanasia within the state assisted suicide act. Link to the court decision (Link).
On August 30 I wrote an article about the California court case to permit euthanasia within the state assisted suicide act. The case argued that some people with disabilities, who are approved for assisted suicide, are unable to self-administer the lethal drugs. Therefore, based on the Americans with Disabilities Act, the court must permit euthanasia (doctor administered death) in these cases.
On September 13 I wrote that the California court must reject the challenge to the state assisted suicide act based on (among other reasons):
Toynbee writes:
On Thursday, it (Nice) opened a consultation period for new guidelines on how much NHS England should spend on end-of-life drugs, planning to remove some of the extra funding for very expensive drugs that may only delay death a little.
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights sent a media release today urging that assisted suicide for psychiatric patients be rejected in the US and other countries. The watchdog group pointed out that assisted suicide has now been legalized in several US states, the CCHR warned that extending assisted suicide to mental patients is dangerous. The CCHR stated that:
While the U.S. limits this to terminally ill individuals, … it’s a quick jump from this to killing patients who do not have terminal illnesses but are suffering emotional, not physical disabilities after failed psychiatric treatments.
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
| Dr Mark Komrad |
Two weeks I published an article titled: Is assisted suicide a suicide? based on the ongoing debate in the Psychiatric Times between Psychiatrist, Dr Mark Komrad and long-time euthanasia activist Margaret Battin PhD.
Komrad’s response to Battin’s assertion that there is no proof of a slippery slope in jurisdictions that have legalized euthanasia or assisted suicide was published in the Psychiatric Times, on August 27.
The Treasure of Palliative Care – a video series Link to the PDF English version.
Press Release
The Treasure of Palliative Care – a video series
There is always a better option than euthanasiaA Quebec perspective for a better understanding of palliative care
Montréal, CANADA – September 9, 2021 – The Living with Dignity citizen network (LWD), founded in 2010 in advance of the debate on the issue of “dying with dignity” in Quebec, is officially launching The Treasure of Palliative Care video series today.
This article was published by National Review online on September 10, 2021
| Wesley Smith |
By Wesley J Smith
Yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day. You didn’t hear about it? If so, that’s pretty typical, which is why I call this annual event, “Invisible Suicide Prevention Day.”
Once again, the obligatory official proclamations didn’t mention that suicide is now promoted widely in the media, popular culture, and by political activists seeking to legalize so-called “death with dignity” or “aid in dying.”
These euphemisms seek to convince people that committing suicide because of serious illness or disability, is not really suicide.
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
An article by Ed Susman published on September 9 in Medpage Today reports on a presentation to the World Conference on Lung Cancer by Dr Sara Moore, a University of Ottawa medical oncologist. Moore examined 45 euthanasia (MAiD) deaths of people with lung cancer living in the Ottawa region. She concludes that people with lung cancer who died by euthanasia were less likely to consult with a radiation or medical oncologist and less likely to undergo effective treatments.
According to Susman, Moore’s research found that 20% of those who died by euthanasia did not consult a radiation oncologist and 22% did not consult a medical oncologist.
“There is no right to assisted suicide, the court must reject euthanasia.”
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanaisa Prevention Coalition
The California court needs to reject this challenge to the state assisted suicide law based on:
1. There is no right to assisted suicide, therefore there is no legal requirement to amend the perceived inequality within the state assisted suicide law.
2. The Supreme Court, in Glucksberg, recognized that there is no right to assisted suicide and it recognized that one state interests in prohibiting assisted suicide was the prevention of euthanasia.
While reading an article published by the Cal-Alumni Association that was promoting the expansion of the California assisted suicide law I wondered: Why does the death lobby get away with promoting suicide?
I regularly read articles about euthanasia and assisted suicide but I clearly felt that this article was not only promoting the expansion of assisted suicide but it was also irresponsible in how it described the deaths and applauded those who died.
This article was published by Bioedge on August 29, 2021.
| Michael Cook |
By Michael Cook, Editor of Bioedge
The debate in Canada over euthanasia and assisted suicide – or, as it is called there, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) – will have a huge impact upon developments elsewhere in the Anglosphere. As two of Canada’s stalwart defenders of MAiD, Jocelyn Downie and Udo Schuklenk, pointed out in a recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, “other countries will confront the same questions if they contemplate changing their assisted dying law”.
This makes their pushback against critics of MAiD even more interesting.
“May I give my heart away?“
This article was published by National Review on August 21, 2021.
By Wesley Smith
We have entered the era of what I call “do harm medicine,” in which the concept of what constitutes harming the patient has become entirely malleable and subjective. I even wrote a book covering that subject.
Here’s an example: When organ transplant medicine began, the “dead donor rule” was instituted to assure a wary public that people’s vital organs would only be procured after the person was dead. A corollary to that rule assures the public that people will not be killed for their body parts.
The Hawaii assisted suicide law came into effect on January 1, 2019. The 2019 Hawaii assisted suicide (“Our care, our choice act”) report indicated that in the first year of the assisted suicide law: 30 people were prescribed a lethal drug cocktail, 15 people died by assisted suicide, 8 people who received a lethal prescription died a natural death and 7 people who received a lethal prescription remained alive at the end of 2019.
The Hawaii 2020 assisted suicide report that was recently released indicated that:
In the past few years the American assisted death lobby has pushed the limits of state assisted suicide laws. In 2019, Oregon eliminated the 15 day waiting period for assisted suicide and currently California is debating assisted suicide expansion bill SB 380 which, among other things, eliminates the requirement of a formal examination of the law.
The New Mexico assisted suicide law only requires a 48 hour waiting period, that can be waived, and it redefined who could approve assisted suicide to include nurses.
The California assisted death lobby is supporting a court case to expand assisted suicide to euthanasia in California.
Article by: Randy Knol, the father of Ximena who died at the age of 19 from ingesting a suicide powder. Randy is the founder and chairman of Ximena’s Butterfly Foundation in the Netherlands.
The misunderstanding of suicide
| Randy Knol with his wife |
In my previous article I wrote about suicide as being the wish to escape the situation somebody is in, I stated that suicide is not the desire to die.
The Psychiatric Times has published several back and forth articles from Psychiatrist and ethicist Dr Mark Komrad (Article 1) (Article 2) and long-time euthanasia and assisted suicide activists, Margaret Battin PhD and associates (Article 1) (Article 2).
One of the key issues that separate psychiatrists and ethicists concerning assisted death is should psychiatrists prevent suicide or provide it? Komrad argues that assisted suicide constitutes a form of suicide and psychiatrists are trained to prevent suicide not provide it while Battin argues that assisted suicide does hasten death but it is not a suicide.
We received this email from Margaret titled: No Euthanasia for Mental Health Reasons. She gave us permission to publish it.
As I am now approaching 70 years of age, I would like to share my experience
Ever since I was twelve years old, I have been treated by psychiatrists, and many other people in the mental health system.
For over thirty-eight years, I considered myself to have active suicidal intentions.
“I can’t live like this but I don’t want to die either”
| Randy Knol with his wife. |
Article by: Randy Knol, the father of Ximena, is the founder and chaiman of Ximena’s Butterfly Foundation
The title is in one sentence of what suicide is about, it’s not a wish to die it’s an escape from the life you have at that moment.
Leo van Doesburg with The European Christian Political Movement (EPCM) and Diederik van Dijk with the NPV-Zorg voor het leven (NPV-Care for life) published a thorough article titled: Legalizing Euthanasia: What we can learn from the Netherlands, in response to the growing number of countries debating euthanasia and the growing practise of euthanasia in the Netherlands. (Link to the article).
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
In response to attacks against the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK, Jamie Gillies, in spiked-online focuses on the eugenics roots of the assisted dying movement. Gillies writes about Killick Millard who founded the leading assisted dying group in the UK. Gillies states:
Scotland’s media class seems quite happy to spare prominent groups on the other side of the assisted-suicide debate from scrutiny. The Record, for instance, has failed to mention that Dignity in Dying, the group leading the charge for assisted suicide in the UK, was founded and funded by eugenicist politician Killick Millard.
| Randy and Caroline Knol |
Randy Knol, the father of Ximena, a 19-year-old who died in February 2018 by taking the suicide powder known as “Substance X” has been working for three years to get the lethal powder banned.
The death of Ximena is once again in the media after a 28-year-old man from Eindhoven was arrested for selling the suicide powder for profit to at least 6 people who died.
“The suspect sold the drug from November 2018 to June 2021,” the OM alleged in a statement. “The criminal investigation started after the death of a woman from Best in May 2021.”
| Dr Peter Scott Morgan |
Dr Peter Scott-Morgan, who is a tech pioneer, wrote an excellent opinion article that was published by inews in the UK titled: Pioneering tech lets me live a happy life with motor neurone disease (MND) – I’m wary of assisted dying law changes. Scott Morgan examines the issue of assisted suicide from a personal point of view and as a person who has researched the issue.
Scott-Morgan begins his article by acknowledging that when he heard about the assisted suicide debate, he intuitively supported it, thinking it was reasonable, compassionate and humane.
A message from Hope Ireland
We are very pleased to inform you, our supporters, that the Oireachtas Committee on Justice has refused to progress the Dying with Dignity Bill any further, and recommended a special parliamentary committee examine the whole area of “Assisted Dying”. This is now the second time that the DWD Bill has failed to progress to completion through the Dáil – first in 2015, and now again in 2021.
The following article was published by National Review online on July 16, 2021.
Article: Assisted suicide lobby researchers promote suicide devices for people with dementia (Link).
By Wesley Smith
Bioethicists are looking for ways to eliminate people diagnosed with dementia when they become incapacitated. Belgium and the Netherlands permit advance orders to be euthanized. Another proposal gaining traction in bioethics would force caregivers to starve patients to death.
And here’s a new idea: Writing in the Hastings Center Report — the world’s most prominent bioethics journal — two prominent bioethicists propose the implantation of a time-release suicide device that will cause future death at the time of the patient’s choosing.
