Posted on 04/04/2009 11:09:11 AM PDT by wagglebee
HELENA — While a district court judge has ruled it is a right protected in the state constitution, life-ending treatment has proved elusive for many patients in Montana, an advocacy group said Friday.
One such patient is Janet Murdock of Missoula, a 67-year-old woman who is dying from ovarian cancer and has asked doctor for a prescription that would bring about her death to no avail.
Murdock, through the Denver-based advocacy group Compassion and Choices, released a statement Friday in hopes of highlighting the issue that a spokesman for the group said is not unique.
“I feel as though my doctors do not feel able to respect my decision to choose aid in dying,” Murdock said in the statement. “Access to physician aid in dying would restore my hope for a peaceful, dignified death in keeping with my values and beliefs.
“I have suffered so much that I have considered throwing myself into a snow bank to die of hypothermia,” she said.
In December, District Judge Dorothy McCarter found that physician-assisted suicide is protected by the privacy provisions of the Montana State Constitution. With that ruling and no laws on the books in the state restricting physician-assisted suicide, Montana is considered to have the most liberal rights in regards to life-ending treatment. But assisted suicide, or “death with dignity,” advocates say that right is being frustrated by the unwillingness among doctors to aid in dying.
“In this context ‘justice delayed is justice denied,’” said Kathryn Tucker, a lawyer for Compassion and Choices who argued before McCarter.
Along with Murdock, at least one other Montanan, an unnamed man from Sheridan, has told Compassion and Choices that he is having trouble finding life-ending treatment, according to Steve Hopcraft, a spokesman for Compassion and Choices.
That could at least be in part due to the Montana medical communities moral qualms with assisting in suicide.
The Montana Medical Association adopted a policy following the ruling that states the groups “does not condone the deliberate act of precipitating the death of a patient.”
The policy goes onto state that the organization “acknowledges” that some treatments to eliminate pain and suffering could hasten a patient’s death, but “does not accept the proposition that death with dignity may be achieved only through physician-assisted suicide.”
Dr. Kirk Stoner, a physician in Plentywood and president of the Montana Medical Association, said his group’s stance is the same as physician groups in other states and nations, including those jurisdictions where physician-assisted suicide is legal by law.
“(Assisted suicide) is really against our ethics,” he said. “Our reason for being is to care for our patients.”
Two things are at play in Montana and elsewhere, he said.
“One is society’s right to allow a person to kill themselves. The other is a physician’s right to participate in that,” he said.
Still, advocates for life-ending treatment said Friday that they are hopeful doctors will come forward to treat people like Murdock.
“It’s really sad. Here we are after the ruling and Janet Murdock can’t exercise that right,” said Tucker.
Tucker told reporters she does not know how many people, if any, have been assisted in dying by a doctor in Montana since the ruling.
She pinned the hesitancy for some doctors to perform the practice on ignorance or fear, and not the ethical reasons Stoner cited.
“I hope that physicians have heard about the decision, but we don’t actually know. My suspicion is that physicians are not aware of the decision or are still feeling at risk,” she said.
“I hope that physicians have heard about the decision, but we don’t actually know. My suspicion is that physicians are not aware of the decision or are still feeling at risk,” she said.
No, these doctors are being ethical and realize that their duty is to help people, not kill them.
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So, she wants doctors to commit murder on her behalf. Am I missing something here?
But of course, she doesn't respect her doctor's right to refuse to offer such treatment. No one is stopping her from committing suicide.
These people are so stupid that it makes me insane. If you are terminal and in a lot of pain, odds are good you can easily get narcotics. Too much Oxycontin will take care of you pretty fast. I knew two people who accidentally died of Oxycontin overdoses. If you want to commit suicide, do it yourself, and leave your blood off of the hands of others.
“I feel as though my doctors do not feel able to respect my decision to choose aid in dying”
How about you respect the doctors’ decision to not assist you in murdering yourself?
If you’re going to throw away God’s Greatest Gift, why don’t you wrap yourself up in a plastic bag, so you don’t leave a mess for someone to clean up, down a fist full of sleeping pills with a liter of vodka, and get on your way to explaining to The Lord why you did what you did?
It is an inescapable fact of terminal cancers that the morphine they use to ease pain will hasten death, but as long as the intent is to relieve pain I see no ethical problems in providing plentiful pain-killers. To act in deliberation to kill is to be an executioner, not a physician.
And any physician who found himself blandished into doing this will sever negative publicity, as well. I'd suspect him of being mentally unbalanced.
Tucker knows she will have access to morphine at a conventional hospice. I find this kind of exhibitionism repulsive.
Later on, it'll prove a lot harder to avoid for a lot more patients, as the Rationalization of Large Numbers begins to grind up human rights and essences into just more mealy-meal for the powerful.
Soylent Yellow, I think they'll call it.
Nice touch. So, doctors are cowardly, ignorant, hypocritical, disingenuous and unethical.
Couldn't do better myself were I insulting someone.
She has invented the game of insult golf, where you try to say the most comprehensive nasty thing about someone using the fewest words.
I wouldn’t be reluctant if this so-called, “judge” and everyone in these “advocacy groups” were my first “patients.”
Suicide is a personal decision. A doctor should not be burdened with pain and suffering. The doctor should be allowed to give the institutional patient artificial drugs which make them feel ok. If someone is on their own and really wants to die, go start your car in the garage and get drunk. They must keep in mind it is sinful to remove your soul by artificial means.
“So, she wants doctors to commit murder on her behalf. Am I missing something here?”
No, you’re not.
Look on the bright side:
Once Obama takes over health care, they will start by denying health care workers the right to refrain from any medical care they find morally objectionable. While we now think this is just for abortion and prescribing the morning after pill, this will also, no doubt, include the obligation of physicians to overdose a patient with drugs to end their life. Any patient this physically ill, will have plenty of medications at home to do it themselves, but they want someone else to inject the medicines.
The ultimate nanny state when we can’t even commit suicide without someone else’s help.
Just what "values and beliefs" might those be, and why couldn 't they be honored with a 9mm bullet to the head at close range?
Liberal a-holes can't even die without being a pain in the a&&.
These cowards should do their own killing and not expect the medical community to do it for them.
How about starvation? We heard from the “experts” that that was a peachy way to die during the Terry Schiavo tragedy.
Okay.....so what's the problem? Just do it and leave everyone else out of your psychosis.
Now that the senate has criminalized the invocation of conscience in refusing to perform abortions, let’s count the days until they mandate a physician’s assistance in one’s suicide.
Human nature means constantly pushing the envelope. It won’t stop at mandatory abortions and mandatory suicide.
If a doctor does not want to help you kill yourself, put a gun to your head and pull the trigger. That way you are dead and the anti-gun people can use your death to get our guns away from us.
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