Dr. Mark Mostert: Final Exit Network Spin: It’s Not Killing, It’s Dignity

The Final Exit Network (FEN) is a radical pro-death group that counsels people and then helps them to kill themselves.

That’s why several of its members have been indicted by the Feds for their activities in Arizona and Georgia. Other investigations are ongoing.

No matter, FEN continues to spin the charges as unfair, harassing, and, well, un-American.

What twaddle.

The latest pro-death propaganda appeared in the Baltimore Sun a few days ago penned by Jerry Dicin, FEN’s president.

It’s a tour de force of manipulation, arrogance and outright dishonesty.

After noting that his FEN colleague Dr. Larry Egbert, is awaiting trial related to assisted killing in both Arizona and Georgia, Dicin launches into how Egbert was not complicit in murder, but was actually doing what doctors are supposed to do, and that this abominable behavior is a solution for people with Alzheimer’s Disease – both for the victims themselves and because it will spare their loved ones watching the progression of the disease:

By talking to these folks, Dr. Egbert was fulfilling his responsibility as a medical professional.
To understand why, consider the plight of those suffering from Alzheimer's [who] . . . can expect a slow, painful descent into advanced dementia . . .. Friends and family who are forced to witness their fall into oblivion suffer indescribably.
Given this bleak outlook, it's easy to see why some Alzheimer's patients choose to hasten their own death. It's also easy to see why Dr. Egbert was determined to help patients suffering from conditions like Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease make this difficult decision.
It is time for the world to recognize the right and the rationality for mentally competent adults in such circumstances to take their own lives.

Just in case you missed it: How many people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s can be judged mentally competent? Well, they can’t, but that’s of little consequence to Dicin – making people dead is the ultimate goal, no matter what. In truth, the pro-death crowd don’t care about mental competence – they just care about death on demand.

Dicin then trots out the old horror line of pain and suffering:

That's your mother screaming in that bed, dealing every day with some terrible disease like Lou Gehrig's. She can look forward to a body that can't move, speak or swallow food, a life of total dependency on others for every act of maintenance.

Well, what’s the evidence here? The truth is that very, very few people’s pain at the end of life cannot be controlled by good palliative care and pain management. No matter, it’s the horror that’s meant to goad people into killing themselves.

Solution? Why, the good folks at FEN, of course!!!

That's where my organization, Final Exit Network, comes in. We provide information and counsel to patients who approach us seeking to deliver themselves from torture and make informed choices. The impetus comes from within them; we do not "encourage" anyone. We go to great lengths to ensure that the person is capable of choosing rationally.

Oh yes, those rational Alzheimer’s guys!!

But the preliminary reports of the Fed undercover sting showed much more: FEN advocates not even asking for proof that the victim had a terminal disease (or any disease, for that matter), and the inconvenient fact that the undercover agent was assured that once the assisted killing had begun, his FEN “guide” would hold his hands tightly enough so that he couldn’t change his mind and rip the gas mask from his face.

Without coercion, lies, spin, propaganda, and a healthy dose of narcissism, the pro-death crowd won’t win.

Unless, by remaining silent, we let them.

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