Posted on 09/09/2003 10:35:10 AM PDT by MarMema
Montpelier, VT (LifeNews.com) -- Advocates of assisted suicide in Vermont have introduced a bill there to legalize the deadly practice. The legislation is based on an Oregon law that made the western state the first in the nation to allow doctors to assist patients in killing themselves.
In a speech last week to an Episcopal church congregation, state Sen. Dick McCormack, the sponsor, claimed the bill would provide adequate safeguards to ensure that assisted suicide isn't abused.
McCormack, also the statewide coordinator for End of Life Choices, former the Hemlock Society, said the bill would allow patients who are expected to die within six months to request drugs to take their life.
The legislation has prompted some doctors in the state to form a new organization dedicated to defeating it.
Vermont Alliance for Ethical Healthcare has been formed in an attempt to prevent assisted suicide from becoming legal. The group sponsored a March luncheon for legislators to educate them about the dangers of assisted suicide.
"This legislation is not needed and it's dangerous," Dr. Robert Orr, the group's president, told roughly 60 lawmakers.
Orr, who formed the group with 16 other doctors, said Vermont has gained a reputation as a pioneer in palliative and hospice care, which he said provides patients with comfort in the dying process rather than hastening their death. And unlike most other states, Vermont offers these services in every community, he said.
"I cannot emphasize too strongly that if this bill passes, it's a sea change," he said, raising concerns that the premise of the bill flies in the face of the longstanding tradition of physician as a healer.
Pro-life groups are also expected to strongly oppose the measure.
The Vermont Right to Life Committee and the Catholic Diocese of Burlington have already indicated they will lobby against it.
They may have a tough time keeping the bill from becoming law.
In July, pro-life groups were outraged when the president of the Vermont Medical Society received only a slap on the wrist for euthanizing a patient. The doctors group has announced it will hold a series of forums in September allowing proponents and opponents of the bill to make their case.
Howard Dean, the former Governor and a presidential candidate, recently indicated he supports assisted suicide.
These people, as you see above, are speaking to churches and using all of the standard pro-euthanasia arguments. In churches, above all, we should be finding opponents to euthanasia. They know where the strongest opposition is, and they are making the effort to overcome it.
In a book I just purchased for about 12 dollars, Forced Exit, the author outlines each argument for euthanasia and offers counter-arguments. If you want to help, there is no better place to begin than with this inexpensive book.
If there is enough interest, I will post the arguments discussion from the book here.
This topic is one that very few are educated about yet. We have a good chance to make a difference here and now. We are on the cutting edge of a movement in the direction of euthanasia.
A curare derivative? Is this compassionate??
He killed without even being asked to kill, and he was simply given a different position within the society.
And Howard Dean supports it? Why am I not surprised by that, either? Lord help us all!
Get this. It's not pain, but loss of autonomy that makes people kill themselves.
Something wrong here when not being perfect or having to live with a disability means you commit suicide.
"Deadly milestone: 5 years of assisted suicide"
Oregon marks its fifth year as the only state in the nation to allow physician-assisted suicide. The number of people availing themselves of the law in 2002 doubled since 1998, the first year the law was in place.
Editorial. April 21, 2003. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oregon marked a somber anniversary last month when officials released the fifth annual report on physician-assisted suicide under the state's Death with Dignity Act.
For those who believe, as the AMA does, that physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally inconsistent with a physician's professional role, the report is troubling.
While the number of actual suicides under the law remains relatively small -- 38 in 2002 -- that number is more than double the 16 suicides that occurred in 1998, the first year the law was in place.
Also troubling, as it has been in the past, is the report's findings on the reasons people contemplate physician-assisted suicide.
It would be easy -- and, many would say, understandable -- if intractable pain, a traditional rallying cry for assisted suicide, was at the forefront. Not so. It came in, as it typically does, very near the bottom of the list. Instead, the main reason has remained constant: loss of autonomy.
Joining it at the top of the list are concerns over decreasing ability to participate in the activities that make life enjoyable, losing control of bodily functions and becoming a burden on family, friends or caregivers.
This represents both a tragedy and a challenge for the medical profession and for society. A dignified and pain-free end of life -- without perverting medicine's mission -- is achievable. The medical profession needs to do its share, both clinically and in terms of advocacy, to ensure that dying patients are provided optimal treatment for these discomforts, physical or emotional.
With at least two more states contemplating legalization of assisted suicide, it is important that the future debate not surrender to the failure represented by each deadly prescription.
Forced Exit. A book I am waiting on to come in is called Culture of Death. We all need to read both of these books. For our own sakes. They cost next to nothing for what they give you in information, that could be life-saving if you needed it suddenly.
Pram, I am so happy to hear you will be working in a hospice. I think you will bring so much to the people there.
Author of both books I am pushing. :-)
Grim irony only partly intended.
BTTT
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