Posted on 07/13/2018 1:20:57 PM PDT by Morgana
Multiple news outlets are reporting that Robert Latimer has submitted a letter to the Minister of Justice seeking a pardon or a new trial following his conviction for the murder of his daughter Tracy in 1993.
Latimer has been free on parole since 2010. Contrary to some media reports, Latimer has been able to travel outside Canada since 2015, according to the Globe and Mail.
Disability rights activists are concerned that the pardon request is a “symptom and effect of the continuing devaluation of disabled people” as shown by the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia in 2016, according to Amy Hasbrouck, director of Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet. She notes that individual choice is supposed to be key to the suspension of homicide laws in cases of assisted suicide and euthanasia. “Yet Tracy was not given a choice.”
Hasbrouck says public policies that favour institutional care over home-based supports, and failure to fund such supports, as well as palliative care, deprive disabled people of any real choice in where and how they live. “Under those circumstances, how can the choice to die be truly ‘free’?” she said.
Though Hasbrouck agrees that Tracy Latimer should have received effective pain relief, she finds the statement that ‘Tracy Latimer’s life should have ended ‘unintentionally’ as a secondary consequence of her physicians’ administration of opiates to alleviate her pain,” to be “ignorant, insulting, and offensive.”
Hasbrouck also points to a claim made by Latimer’s attorney Jason Gratl that “[g]ranting a pardon to Mr. Latimer does not detract from any value or principle.”
“Pardoning Tracy’s killer would signal a failure of the Government’s commitment to equality, justice, and ending discrimination against disabled Canadians,” said Hasbrouck.
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She noted that the Latimer conviction was “the exception to the rule” that parents who kill their disabled children receive more lenient treatment from the criminal justice system than do parents who kill their non-disabled children.
Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet (TVNDY) is a nonreligious and nonpartisan organization established in 2013 by and for people with disabilities as a project of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. Our goal is to inform, unify and give voice to the disability rights opposition to assisted suicide, euthanasia, and other life-ending practices that have a disproportionate impact on people with disabilities.
Sorry. This is lifenews and does not contain all relevant info. I had been reading another article.
Yes, and a gross oversimplification (notice that King David was pardoned of murder).
It might be that an anodyne medicine will have a risk. Good grief, all do. People have died of aspirin.
Hospice patients in America, have no problem getting adequate pain relief. The problem is, that this trend of reducing and withholding pain meds for OTHER chronic pain patients, if allowed to continue, will logically cause the scenario of insisting that chronic pain patients be placed on hospice. Easier to off, that way. Hospice patients cannot be admitted to the hospital, or have aggressive treatment, or they’ll be dropped from hospice. Think of the savings, especially to Medicare! (And now, thanks to obamacare progressively increasing measures, anyone on obamacare). BTW, just got a bill for $347, for a pap smear, and a notice from Medicare that they will not pay for it, because I’m over 65! But, noooooo, “Medicare benefits won’t be reduced.” Thanks again, Obama.
Would you care to share your link with the rest of the class?
Thank you for the thread, and for the ping.
I’ve noticed society is becoming more and more accepting of the final solution.
I know two people whose grandfather and grandmother, respectively, knew it was their time. They bathed, dressed in the good clothes, lay down that night, and died in their sleep. They were elderly, and cared for themselves up to that day, as best as they could.
They both happened to be devout Catholics.
I wonder how many people really are in favor of killing the “unfit”.
The MSM likes to make us think we’re in the minority about everything.
He got that look of seeing into the rapture, so I specifically said to him, don't die on me yet just because your prayers have been fulfilled and he assured me he would not.
I went back overseas and the very next day the First Shirt knocked on my door to tell me Dad had passed away. Just before he died in the hospital my Mother was able to tell him his second granddaughter, my niece, had been born.
Yes, people choose their time more than most seem to realize.
I do not think that is universally true. My experience is that opioids make me feel weird and have all kinds of side effects. I would be hard pressed to say they actually have any effect on pain. I have told doctors outright that I don't want a narcotic. I do not think that I am the only person for whom opioids have no pain relieving effects.
With a non-verbal child, how can one determine if the pain is actually alleviated, in a way that distinguishes pain relief from drugging the child to the point of being unable to respond yet still in pain?
I don’t know the science of pain meds. But an oncologist I once knew said that, after 40 years’ experience with cancer patients, he had never seen intractable pain, but he had seen intractable doctors and nurses.
You’re always aiming for “calm and alert” and a pain level tolerable to the patient, and that takes very careful dosing. Patient self-dosing is often the best, because most people will choose “calm and alert” some of the time, when they want to interact with people, and well-sedated otherwise.
Even a level of (say) morphine that measurably depresses respiration and predictable shortens overall life expectancy, is ethically justifiable if it is necessary to stop intolerable pain.
About opioids and pain ... I wonder, too. Maybe it’s just me. I had morphine during labor for Baby #3. The effect was that it still hurt, but I didn’t care. For severe pain like bone cancer, you have to wonder how much pain the patient still has.
Thanks for that lj. I do think the Lord and Giver of Life can let people know when they’re going to die -— in His time.
There are a few mechanisms of pain medications.
The NSAIDs relieve inflammation, which decrease pain by removing the source and, incidentally, promoting healing.
I’m not sure how acetaminophen (Tylenol) works, but it never worked very well for me. Plus, it has an effect where it causes headaches, probably due do its (poorly understood) mechanism of action.
Opioids interact with certain receptors and, for some (most) people, block the perception of pain. There are people who have genetic variants that make opioids less effective.
Once, I injured my back, causing spasms. Valium eliminated the pain. But Valium cannot be taken long term, and probably is not effective for other types of pain.
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