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'Living will law' could put frail lives at risk, warn doctors
UK Daily Mail ^ | 9/28/07 | Steve Doughty

Posted on 09/28/2007 5:22:51 PM PDT by wagglebee

Desperately ill patients will be at risk of being killed off by friends or relatives under "living will" laws, officials admitted yesterday.

The system that allows a third party to withdraw the medical treatment that is keeping a patient alive is open to abuse and fraud, they said.

The prospect of patients being killed on the orders of relatives who stand to benefit from their wills has reignited debate on the Mental Capacity Act, which comes into force on Monday.

Doctors warned there were too few safeguards to prevent exploitation of the ill.

Dr Philip Howard, a London gastroenterology hospital consultant, said: "The law will lead to real difficulties when a family member has the power to order that someone should die while at the same time they are a beneficiary of the will."

He added: "Law governing wills and property makes it very difficult to influence someone to make a will in your favour - the Mental Capacity Act has nothing like that sort of safeguard."

The Act, condemned by its critics as "back door euthanasia", allows people to write living wills which tell doctors to withdraw life-sustaining treatment if they become too ill to speak for themselves.

This will usually mean doctors removing tubes providing water and nourishment to an incapacitated patient.

It also allows patients to hand over "lasting powers of attorney" to family, friends or anyone else they choose, giving them the right to make decisions about their medical treatment if they become too ill to decide. For the first time, the new law gives such "attorneys" the right to order doctors to actually withdraw treatment, including nutrition and hydration.

Christian and Muslim doctors have already said they will refuse to obey the law if a living will tells them to kill a patient - even if they face criminal prosecution and a possible jail sentence.

Yesterday officials who will police the new law said as many as one in seven of the current "enduring powers of attorney" in which only financial decisions are handed to others - have involved fraud or abuse.

Former charity chief Richard Brook, the newly appointed Public Guardian in charge of investigating complaints about the new law, said: "Enduring powers of attorney have been one of the biggest areas for fraud and abuse."

Mr Brook said the new LPAs will carry safeguards and "make it more difficult for that to occur".

Critics of the Act believe the safeguards are insufficient.

Elspeth Chowdharay-Best of the Alert pressure group said: "People sign living wills thinking they will die a little bit earlier, and nobody minds that if they are dying anyway.

"But what this law does not say, and most people do not know, is that they will be condemning themselves to die terribly of thirst."

How our rights are changing

Euthanasia remains illegal in Britain. However the Mental Capacity Act makes it legally possible for the first time to end the life of a patient by medical intervention.

It gives legal force to "living wills", in which patients can set down what medical treatment they wish to be given, or not given.

The sting of the Mental Capacity Act is that, in law, medical treatment is not simply a matter of drugs or surgery. Since a landmark House of Lords judgment in 1993, providing food and water to those who cannot eat or drink for themselves counts as treatment as well.

That judgment was at the centre of the case in which Hillsborough football disaster victim Tony Bland, who was in a persistent vegetative state, was able to die.

The new Office of the Public Guardian will investigate complaints about the law.

A Court of Protection has also been set up to settle disputes.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: euthanasia; livingwills; moralabsolutes; prolife
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The Act, condemned by its critics as "back door euthanasia", allows people to write living wills which tell doctors to withdraw life-sustaining treatment if they become too ill to speak for themselves.

And if it works in the UK, the culture of death will try it in the United States and everywhere else.

1 posted on 09/28/2007 5:22:52 PM PDT by wagglebee
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To: cgk; Coleus; cpforlife.org; narses; 8mmMauser

Pro-Life Ping


2 posted on 09/28/2007 5:23:34 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: BykrBayb; bjs1779; floriduh voter

Ping


3 posted on 09/28/2007 5:24:00 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: 230FMJ; 49th; 50mm; 69ConvertibleFirebird; Aleighanne; Alexander Rubin; An American In Dairyland; ..
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee or little jeremiah to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]


4 posted on 09/28/2007 5:24:34 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee
Be afraid! be very afraid ... this is the ultimate solution to the Medicare / Soc Sec problem. And with the estate tax back in full force, the gubermint will be there right alongside the grasping relatives.
5 posted on 09/28/2007 5:34:42 PM PDT by NonValueAdded (Fred Dalton Thompson for President)
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To: NonValueAdded

Yep.


6 posted on 09/28/2007 5:35:12 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee
"The Act, condemned by its critics as "back door euthanasia", allows people to write living wills which tell doctors to withdraw life-sustaining treatment if they become too ill to speak for themselves."

I have a living will. I've seen what happens when someone is a victim of extraordinary medical intervention. No one should be forced to accept medical care if he or she has made clear what to do in such a situation.

7 posted on 09/28/2007 5:39:29 PM PDT by muir_redwoods (Free Sirhan Sirhan, after all, the bastard who killed Mary Jo Kopechne is walking around free)
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To: NonValueAdded

Agree!


8 posted on 09/28/2007 5:39:58 PM PDT by dynachrome (Henry Bowman is right.)
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To: wagglebee

I have a living will. It says I refuse to die one nanosecond before the Lord is ready to take me.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas


9 posted on 09/28/2007 5:46:58 PM PDT by ConorMacNessa (HM/2 USN, 3rd Bn. 5th Marines, RVN 1969. St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle!)
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To: wagglebee
Desperately ill patients will be at risk of being killed off by friends or relatives under "living will" laws, officials admitted yesterday.

Shades of tontine.

10 posted on 09/28/2007 6:00:47 PM PDT by decimon
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To: wagglebee

I keep trying to tell people the other side—with a living will you can specify to use all means possible to keep you going...............


11 posted on 09/28/2007 6:07:44 PM PDT by yldstrk (My heros have always been cowboys--Reagan and Bush)
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To: ConorMacNessa
"I have a living will. It says I refuse to die one nanosecond before the Lord is ready to take me."

I agree with you, and formed my opinions after watching 2 specific instances.

In the first, my father had a stroke and was in a "vegetative state". The Dr asked if I wanted to feed him, and when I said yes he argued with me. "He could live like that for 20 years.""He will never get better".... etc etc. I told him when God wanted him home the Dr wouldn't be able to keep him here. Dad woke up 10 days later and we had the best 2 years of our lives after that.

The second also involved a stroke. Mr G was at a hospital and overhearing the conversation of the relatives of the stroke victim. They were asked if he had a living will and when told he did the medical personnell took him to a different room, removed all life sustaining support, and let them sit with him to die. No one explained he could recover, or that perhaps the ventilator was a temporary measure of support (like with my father), or that these drugs will reduce swelling (they removed IVs)and on and on. They just removed him to a room to die. It was freakily cold blooded.

Mr G and I say be heroic. If we are ready to go, God will take us.

12 posted on 09/28/2007 6:13:36 PM PDT by Grammy
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To: wagglebee

This is why you get a “Health Care Power of Attorney” drawn up instead of a “Living Will”.

Living wills allow doctors to make decisions regardless of family wishes.

Health Care Power of Attorney gives someone you trust (and tell what you want them to do in case they cannot) the ability to tell the doctor what to do or not do.


13 posted on 09/28/2007 6:15:52 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man
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To: Grammy
my father had a stroke and was in a "vegetative state". The Dr asked if I wanted to feed him, and when I said yes he argued with me. "He could live like that for 20 years.""He will never get better".... etc etc. Dad woke up 10 days later and we had the best 2 years of our lives after that.

Did the doctor have anything to say after your Dad woke up?

14 posted on 09/28/2007 6:38:37 PM PDT by DumpsterDiver
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To: muir_redwoods

Water is not medical care.
susie


15 posted on 09/28/2007 6:38:44 PM PDT by brytlea (amnesty--an act of clemency by an authority by which pardon is granted esp. to a group of individual)
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To: wagglebee

This seems to be paradoxical. That is, why would anyone in their right mind write a living will giving someone they don’t trust control over their life?

There is a big difference between actively ending a life and passively allowing a life to end. If I am grievously mauled in body and mind, I have no great objection to being allowed to die by being denied sustenance, especially if failing to do so means that my family will be impoverished. I do not cling to my life so much that I want to live on as crippled and reduced of mind. I would probably find no objection in the use of more active measures, either, at least for myself, if less discomfort was involved.

And I do not want my family enslaved to my shell.

I object as well that any outsider would seek to impose on me the continuation of life I despised. Such an action would be as repulsive as their purchasing the services of a thug or killer to injure me.

Their beliefs and desires be damned. They are not of my family, and only my family has given me life and nurtured me, so only they have a say in my unfortunate demise.

If such peoples religion demands it of them, then I would encourage my family to hire individuals of a different religion to return the favor to my oppressor’s family, and in an equal or greater manner.


16 posted on 09/28/2007 7:08:38 PM PDT by Popocatapetl
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To: wagglebee
Wagglebee, I'll pay you the compliment of asking a simple honest question, because I wonder what you and others think. If by some tragic reason you or I were left in a persistant vegetative state like Sunny von Bulow or Peggy Railey would you want that kind of life? And I mean a persistant vegetative state that had lasted for years. Forty or more years ago we would have died at the time of the injury, but now we have these machines and devices to keep those bodies warm.

Honestly, would you want to be kept alive like that? Personally, I wouldn't. Let me die and go home to God. Would you want your body to be kept in a permanent vegetative state for many years?

And this ISN'T about euthanasia and killing people, it's a matter of what YOU would personally want. Don't bring Terry Schiavo into because we'll never know what she would have wanted, and we'll always think her husband had been trying to kill her for years.

This is a just a personal question because I'd like to know what you and other Freepers think.

17 posted on 09/28/2007 7:32:05 PM PDT by xJones
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To: DumpsterDiver
"Did the doctor have anything to say after your Dad woke up?"

Not a word. Not for 2 years. He kind of pretended it hadn't happened.

18 posted on 09/28/2007 9:13:06 PM PDT by Grammy
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To: xJones
Would you want your body to be kept in a permanent vegetative state for many years?

People are easier to kill if you pretend they aren't really people. If you pretend that their dead corpses are being desecrated, you can pretend you're justified in ending the practice. If you admit the truth, that they are indeed people, the whole justification for killing them falls apart.

19 posted on 09/28/2007 9:32:37 PM PDT by BykrBayb (In memory of my Friend T'wit. ~ Þ)
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To: wagglebee

The problems with this law are obvious. The west has become so lacking in wisdom.


20 posted on 09/28/2007 10:21:38 PM PDT by TAdams8591 (Mitt Romney '08")
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