Canada: Anti-suicide laws have served him well

http://www.timescolonist.com/health/Anti+suicide+laws+have+served+well/5731465/story.html
By John Coppard, Times ColonistNovember 18, 2011

The editorial "Time to talk on right to die" asserts the time is now right to discuss this critically important topic (Nov. 16). 

I submit that the time passed a little over a year ago, when parliamentarians overwhelmingly rejected private member's bill C-384 seeking to legalize physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia by a vote of 228 to 59.
Representatives of all parties recognized the dire risks to public safety of giving physicians the legal right to take their patients' lives, and our health-care system, and even friends and relatives, the legal right to steer ill people toward suicide. Our democratic representatives correctly saw this as open to abuse, and bad public policy.

The "Carter case" now ongoing in Vancouver is an attempt to end-run Parliament.

As a person who is "grievously and irremediably ill" with Grade IV brain cancer, I would be affected should this case succeed. Two and a half years after being given a 20 per cent chance of surviving five years, I am doing very well on a medication approved by Health Canada only a year ago, within a week of my cancer coming back.

Had I been given the legal choice of assisted suicide when I first received my terrible prognosis, or when my cancer returned, when I felt hopeless, I don't know what I would have done.

Now I'm doing very well, thanks to medical advancements that are coming faster than at any time in our history. Our anti-suicide laws protected me and gave me a chance for a long and happy life, just as they were intended to do.

John Coppard
Victoria

Montana Bar Article by Senator Jim Shockley and Margaret Dore

"No, physician-assisted suicide is not legal in Montana:

 It's a recipe for elder abuse and more" [1]

By State Senator Jim Shockley and Margaret Dore

Published in The Montana Lawyer, the official
publication of the State Bar of Montana.

There are two states where physician-assisted suicide is legal: Oregon and Washington.  These states have statutes that  give doctors and others who participate in a qualified patient’s suicide immunity from criminal and civil liability.  (ORS 127.800-995 and RCW 70.245). 

In Montana, by contrast, the law on assisted suicide is governed by the Montana Supreme Court decision, Baxter v. State, 354 Mont. 234 (2009).  Baxter gives doctors who assist a patient’s suicide a potential defense to criminal prosecution.  Baxter does not legalize assisted suicide by giving doctors or anyone else immunity from criminal and civil liability.  Under Baxter, a doctor cannot be assured that a suicide will qualify for the defense.  Some assisted suicide proponents nonetheless claim that Baxter has legalized assisted suicide in Montana.

Legalizing assisted suicide in Montana would be a recipe for elder abuse.  The practice has multiple other problems.

Patient Wishes Opposed

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/132679923.html

I read with sadness the Oct. 21 article about Anne Rostecki, Alleged deprivation of senior probed, by Alexandra Paul.

My mother died in a similar situation. A mild stroke led to her involuntary starvation and dehydration in a Nova Scotia care facility.

There is now a push in Canada to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia as a supposed voluntary choice. But as evidenced by my mother's and Rostecki's cases, doctors now impose their wishes on patients without their consent.

Doctors cannot be trusted with the power they have. Legalizing assisted suicide or euthanasia would give them even more power to effect patient deaths. The idea that legalizing these practices will somehow give patients more autonomy and choice indicates a society gone mad.

KATE KELLY
Coral Harbour, Nunavut

Massachusetts: "Oregon doctor disputes state's assisted suicide"

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/opinion/x553404669/Letter-Oregon-doctor-disputes-states-assisted-suicide 
The Gloucester Daily Times Wed Oct 19, 2011, 11:25 PM EDT

To the editor:

Cynthia Fisk's letter (The Times, Wednesday, Oct. 12) supports assisted suicide to avoid disabling and unyielding pain.

In Oregon, where I practice medicine and where assisted-suicide has been legal since 1997, there has never been a documented case of assisted-suicide used because of actual untreatable pain.

In statewide television ads in 1994, a woman named Patty Rosen claimed to have killed her daughter with an oral overdose of barbiturates because of intractable cancer pain. This claim was later challenged and shown to be false.

Giving patients a lethal dose to kill themselves is easier than evaluating them, caring for them and/or treating them. In short, legalization encourages lazy doctoring.

A few years ago, a patient contacted me concerned that an oncologist might be one of the "death doctors." She questioned his motives,­ particularly when she obtained a more favorable opinion from another oncologist. Such fears were never an issue before assisted-suicide was legalized.

Don't make Oregon's mistake.

William L. Toffler MD
Professor of Family Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University

Massachusetts: "Don't be fooled by assisted-suicide bill"

http://www.lowellsun.com/editorials/ci_19137188
The Lowell Sun
Updated: 10/18/2011 09:27:53 AM EDT

This letter responds to Marie Donovan's article about the proposed Massachusetts death-with-dignity act, which seeks to legalize assisted suicide in your state (" 'Death with Dignity Act' renews end-of-life debate"). I am an attorney in Washington state, one of just two states where physician-assisted suicide is legal. The other state is Oregon. I am also president of Choice is an Illusion, a nonprofit corporation opposed to assisted suicide as an issue of public safety (www.choiceillusion.org).

In both Washington and Oregon, assisted-suicide laws were passed via highly financed sound-bite, ballot-initiative campaigns. No such law has made it through the scrutiny of a legislature -- despite more than 100 attempts. This year, a bill was defeated in the New Hampshire House, 234 to 99.

The proposed Massachusetts act is a recipe for elder abuse. Key provisions include that an heir, who will benefit financially from a patient's death, is allowed to actively help sign the patient up for the lethal dose. See e.g., Section 21 allowing one of two witnesses on the lethal-dose request form to be an heir (http://www.mass.gov/Cago/docs/Government/2011-Petitions/11-12.pdf  ).

Once the lethal dose is issued by the pharmacy, there is no oversight over administration. The proposed act does not require that a doctor or anyone else be present at the time of death. This creates the opportunity for an heir, or another person who will benefit from the death, to administer the lethal dose to the patient without the patient's consent. Even if he struggled, who would know?

Donovan's article prominently features a discussion of religion. In Washington state, proponents used similar discussions and even religious slurs to distract voters from the pitfalls of legalization. What the proposed law said and did was all but forgotten.

Do not be deceived.

MARGARET DORE
Choice is an Illusion
Seattle, Wash.

Hawaii: An Acknowledgement that the Claimed Legality is Bogus?

By Margaret Dore

Yesterday, the Honolulu Star Advertizer announced that Hawaii Representative Blake Oshiro was planning to "lead the charge" to promote assisted suicide legislation in 2012.[1]  The Advertizer elaborated that prior bills to legalize assisted suicide are "still alive" and that "[n]ew bills on the subject may also be introduced."[2]

Just two weeks ago, Oshiro chaired a panel of suicide advocates who claimed that assisted suicide is already legal in Hawaii.[3], [4]  If he believed that assisted suicide is already legal, why would he be planning to "lead the charge" to promote legislation to legalize it again?   

With the announcement of upcoming legislation, there is the implicit acknowledgement that the claimed legality is bogus? 

For more information and talking points about problems with legal assisted suicide, go here.

* * *

[1]  Jay Fidell, "Death with Dignity is Coming Back," The Star Advertiser, October 17, 2011, available at http://thinktech.staradvertiserblogs.com/2011/10/17/death-with-dignity-is-coming-back/
[2]  The Advertiser article refers to two legalization bills:  House Bill 1383 and Senate Bill 803.
[3]  The claim that assisted suicide was already legal in Hawaii was based on a brief written by Kathryn Tucker, Director of Legal Affairs for Compassion & Choices.  For a critique of that brief, click here. 
[4]  According to a post on the Hawaii Death with Dignity Society home page, the panel met on October 5, 2011.  (Last viewed today).