Persons Living with HIV/AIDS: Is This What You Want?

By Margaret Dore, Esq

This is an updated version of an article I wrote three years ago in response to HIV/AIDS groups that had endorsed Ballot Question 2, seeking to legalize assisted suicide in Massachusetts. The ballot question failed, but there is now a similar proposal pending in the Massachusetts legislature (H.1991). I suggest that these groups and persons living with HIV/AIDS give the new proposal a close look. 

1.  "Terminal" does not mean dying. 

H.1991 applies to persons with a "terminal illness," defined in terms of less than six months to live with or without treatment.[1] 

In the 1980's, HIV/AIDS was a death sentence. Today, we have people living with HIV/AIDS, who do well, but who are dependent on treatment to live. Some of these persons are "terminal" under H.1991, i.e., if, without treatment, they "can reasonably be expected to die within 6 months."[2] 

2.  The significance of a terminal label.

Once a person is labeled "terminal," an easy justification can be made that his or her treatment should be denied in favor of someone more deserving. In Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, "terminal" patients have not only been denied treatment, they have been offered assisted suicide instead. In a 2012 affidavit, Oregon doctor Kenneth Stevens put it this way:

Under the Oregon Health Plan [Medicaid], there is . . .  a financial incentive towards suicide because the Plan will not necessarily pay for a patient’s treatment. For example, patients with cancer are denied treatment if they have a "less than [two years] median survival with treatment" and fit other criteria. . . . 

All such persons . . .  will . . . be denied treatment. Their suicides under Oregon’s assisted suicide act will be covered."[3]

He also noted that some persons denied treatment as "terminal" would, if treated, in fact have years, even decades, to live. He stated: 

Some of the patients living longer than two years will likely live far longer than two years, as much as five, ten or twenty years depending on the type of cancer. This is because there are always some people who beat the odds.[4] 

Dore Professional Commentary

http://jurist.org/hotline/2015/10/margaret-dore-physician-assisted-suicide.php

California's New Assisted Suicide Law: Whose Choice Will it Be?

JURIST Guest Columnist, Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

Editor, Maria Coladonato; 

©  WikiMedia (Christopher Padalinski)

California has passed a bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide, which is scheduled to go into effect during 2016. "The End of Life Option Act" was sold as giving patients choice and control at the end of life. The bill, in fact, is about ending the lives of people who are not necessarily dying anytime soon and giving other people the "option" to hurry them along. The bill is a recipe for elder abuse and family trauma. 

New York Daily News: Judge Rules Against Assisted Suicide

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/judge-rules-n-y-die-assisted-physician-article-1.2403502

BY Leonard Greene, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, October 19, 2015, 8:54 PM

A Manhattan judge has denied the dying wish of three New Yorkers who wanted their doctors off the hook if they assisted in their suicides.

Steve Goldenberg, Sara Myers and Eric Seiff, who are all terminally ill, said they want nothing more than to be able to die in peace.

But for that, they said they need a little help, and don’t want their doctors to face any flak.

But state civil judge Joan Kenney said that while she was sympathetic to their plight, their doctors would have to stay on the sidelines.

Kenney said in her ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court has already found that New York state laws prohibit assisted suicide, and the statutes are not in violation of a patients civil rights.

“In New York, as in most states, it is a crime to aid another to commit or attempt suicide,” Kenney said in her ruling. “But patients may refuse lifesaving medical treatment.”

California Killin'

by Paul © -- with apologies to the Mamas and Papas.


Signed by Jerry Brown on an autumn day.

Silencing the lambs, slaughter on the way.

It ain't safe no more; Redding to L.A.

California killin' such a tragic day.

Tennessee Decision Upholding Assisted Suicide Law.

Click here to view the Tennesee Chancery Court decision upholding criminal statute prohibiting assisted suicide, entered yesterday, September 29, 2015.

Judge rules against legalizing assisted suicide in Tennessee

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/davidson%20/2015/09/29/judge-rules-against-tn-assisted-suicide/73048034/

Lucas L. Johnson II, Associated Press, and Stacey Barchenger, The Tennessean6:12 p.m. CDT September 29, 2015

A former Democratic gubernatorial candidate who is terminally ill cannot die by assisted suicide, a judge ruled Tuesday, saying doctors engaging in such a practice are committing "criminal conduct."

John Jay Hooker has terminal cancer and has doctors who have expressed a willingness to prescribe him a lethal dosage of painkillers.