Posted on 12/28/2007 12:12:40 PM PST by wagglebee
It's not an issue on too many Oklahomans' radars, but outside the Sooner State, there is a gradually unfolding philosophical shift where euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are concerned.
On the larger world stage, Ozzy and Sharon Osborne, of Black Sabbath and reality TV-fame, recently brought certain European countries' more liberal approaches to end-of-life decisions to light with a visit to Switzerland.
They traveled there in October to scout out and show their support for Dignitas, a so-called "death apartment" where physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia were performed.
It's not exactly clear how they would notice, but the couple said they planned to make an appointment with the clinic if Ozzy ever came down with Alzheimer's disease.
(Their visit was cut short, incidentally, upon discovering that Dignitas had just been evicted from the building after repeated complaints by other tenants of the large number of coffins cluttering the side of the street outside).
Closer to home, Oregon is recognizing its 10-year anniversary this year as the only state in the nation in which physician-assisted suicide is legal.
This is largely due to the efforts of Compassion and Choices, an Oregon-based nonprofit group that provides end-of-life counseling and advocates, through litigation and legislative lobbying, patients' rights to choose their own manner of dying.
The word "suicide" was intentionally left out of the group's description because it takes particular offense to the use of the word to describe what it supports, regardless of the "physician-assisted"-prefix.
"Suicide is when somebody, usually irrationally, takes their life, but these people want to live. They love life, but they're already dying," said Mike Beard, media relations director for Compassion and Choices.
"Physician-assisted dying" more accurately described the practice established in the Death with Dignity Act, the law passed in Oregon in 1997, he said.
In the decade since the act took effect, the law "has worked extremely well," Beard said.
It's his group's goal that the rest of the nation's laws concerning to end-of-life rights would someday mirror Oregon's.
"There are, at any moment in time, tens of thousands of people who are in extraordinary amounts of pain and they have no options for how they can exit this life with peace and with grace, and we think we ought to afford people at the end of this life with a certain amount of dignity," said Beard.
He said the Death with Dignity Act was now so much a part of the fabric of Oregon's law and medical culture that he sees no possibility of it ever being repealed.
So, their attention is focused outward, to other states. Compassion and Choices has 45,000 members and 52 different local chapters across the nation.
But none in Oklahoma, Beard said.
That might be because, like Oregon, Oklahoma is unique in the nation, but for the opposite reason: because an opposing ethic is already woven into the fabric of the state's laws and medical culture.
"We're unique in the U.S. There's a statute on the books that makes a presumption that, if a patient can't speak, physicians are to provide them with therapy," Dr. Curtis E. Harris told UTW.
While that statutory presumption wouldn't technically conflict with Oregon's Death with Dignity Act (more on that later), the philosophies behind the two laws do represent the two opposing sides of the debate, as the doctor explains.
Fighting Death
Harris is Chief of Endocrinology at the Chickasaw Nation Carl Albert Diabetes Care Center in Ada.
He wears several other hats as well, including Adjunct Professor of Law, specializing in medical law, at the Oklahoma City University School of Law.
He also serves on the state Medical Licensure Board, and has been a regular commentator on medical ethics on National Public Radio.
Harris is also a member of the little-known Nightingale Alliance, the mission of which is "to promote compassionate, medical, emotional and social care at the end of life, allowing each individual to be treated with respect until natural death occurs, and to oppose the life-ending acts of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia," according to www.nightingalealliance.org.
The Nightingale Alliance has existed for six years.
Barbara Lions, director of the Nightingale Alliance, said the organization came about as a response to a series of meetings from people across the country to legalize assisted suicide.
"It's mostly an information source. It doesn't lobby in the Legislature," she said.
Harris said he was asked to join the Nightingale Alliance because he had become so recognized for having started another group with similar goals.
"I founded the American Academy of Medical Ethics, which is about 8,000 physicians scattered throughout the southwest who wanted to return to the original Hippocratic tradition, to counter some of the principals advanced by Jack Kevorkian," he told UTW.
Of course, "Jack Kevorkian," a.k.a. "Dr. Death," is a household name across the country and beyond for having become the public face of physician-assisted suicide.
Hippocrates, though, might not be so familiar a name, save for doctors and "Jeopardy" buffs.
The ancient Greek is regarded as the Father of Medicine and formulated what is known as the Hippocratic Oath, variations of which are taken by doctors before embarking upon their careers.
The classical version, and others, contains a pledge to "neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor make a suggestion to this effect."
Harris explained that, not only was there a need to counter Kevorkian's influence, but another advocacy group--The Hemlock Society--was strenuously at work to change the pertinent laws in several other states, making them friendlier to principles Harris sees as consistent with Kevorkian's.
The Hemlock Society eventually changed its name to End-of-Life Choices and then merged with the similarly-purposed Compassion in Dying in 2004, becoming Compassion and Choices.
Harris said the Oklahoma Feeding and Hydration Act, which was passed in the early 1980s, sprang from a deep-seated medical ethic in the state that opposes anything but naturally occurring death, which would make any efforts at changing the state's laws an unwinnable, uphill struggle, which might explain why groups like Compassion and Choices have no significant presence in Oklahoma.
The law upholds the notion that a physician's role is to preserve life, never to end it, by creating the presumption that if a patient can't speak and hasn't previously indicated wishes to the contrary, they are to be kept alive by providing them with continued nourishment.
While Oregon's Death with Dignity Act lays out what Beard calls "really rigid standards and a fairly complicated process" by which terminally ill patients can receive a physician's assistance in dying, and does not create a statutory presumption in opposition to Oklahoma's Feeding and Hydration Act, Harris said it undermines that long-held notion established by Hippocrates in the 4th Century B.C.
"Prior to Hippocrates, the shamans, who were responsible for providing a type of medical care, would also administer poisons to end someone's life. Hippocrates changes all that, but we seem to be going back to that after 2,400 years," said Harris.
Accordingly, Lions said legalized assisted suicide or euthanasia would dramatically alter the medical profession.
That alteration, she said, would transform physicians' current roles as healers to the dual roles of healers and death-dealers.
That diversification of roles would inevitably lead to physicians bowing to "pressure to encourage people to choose death for financial reasons," said Lions.
The main victims, she said, would be women and minorities.
Minorities would be victimized because, well... dying is a lot cheaper than life-saving health care.
Lions said women would likely be victims because that was the case with Dr. Jack Kevorkian's "patients" or "victims," depending on how one views the issue.
"I have no idea why they were all women, but that's what happened," she said.
Harris said that "slippery slope" could be seen in the Netherlands, where euthanasia and assisted suicide were legalized decades ago after a highly publicized case in which a physician euthanized her mother at her own request because she was dying and expected to pass within a month or two.
The woman was convicted of murder, but due to an overwhelming amount of public sympathy, she was only sentenced to one day in prison, which she didn't serve, Harris recounted.
The incident swayed public opinion in favor of laws allowing euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands, which came about shortly thereafter, taking effect in 2002.
One Pill Makes You Stronger...
According to data collected two or three years ago by the Dutch government, Harris said 37 percent of all euthanasia operations in the nation were performed on competent, non-consenting adults.
If they're non-consenting, how is that not "murder?" he was asked.
"Because their law says it's not," answered Harris.
"Tolerance has become so great that this is acceptable in the Netherlands," he added.
Harris didn't recall the name of the study off the top of his head, however, and UTW wasn't able to locate it.
Regardless, that "slippery slope" might be apparent in a study conducted by the Royal Dutch Medical Association in 2005.
The study underscored the Dutch euthanasia law's lack of a specific definition of what physical or mental conditions must exist in a patient for euthanasia to be legally acceptable--only that a patient "must be suffering hopelessly and unbearably."
Jos Diikhuis, the emeritus professor of clinical psychology who led the study, said many doctors were approached by patients seeking euthanasia who did not have a classifiable disease.
"It is an illusion to suggest a patient's suffering can be unambiguously measured according to his illness," the report read.
Diikhuis and crew argued that the legal threshold for euthanasia should be "suffering through living" that could be judged "unbearable and hopeless."
Another subject of debate among the Dutch in the past several years has been euthanization of terminally ill children.
"There is no logical end," said Harris.
He said the worldwide movement toward euthanasia indicated a philosophical shift in people's definitions of life and the self.
"Personal autonomy has been the mantra in the past half century; social obligation and 'no man is an island' isn't the way people think any more. Now, 'My freedom ends at your nose' is the way they think," said Harris.
"In 1750, if I killed myself, I'd be buried in a paupers' field with no marker, and any inheritance I left would go to the state," said the medical/legal guru.
"Since the late 1800s and early 1900s, though, with the development of psychology as a field of science, suicide was no longer regarded as a crime but as a disease--a symptom of depression," Harris continued.
"So, if someone commits suicide, it's a failure of medicine. But now, we have this odd swing--it's no longer an emotional disease, it's a choice," he added.
Harris said the conditions described by Beard of the tens of thousands of people in extraordinary amounts of pain with no hope of recovering to health, did not exist.
"If I ran across that person, you might be pushing my ethics, but I've never seen that person," he said.
"We can control pain. We can sedate them," he added.
Harris said it was fine for physicians to relieve suffering through anesthesia, though.
Beard, though, said that's essentially what Compassion and Choices advocates for patients who are dying anyway.
He said Oregon's law only allowed assisted suicide under the strictest of conditions.
They must be terminally ill and dying within six months, they must initiate written requests for medication for the purpose of ending their life, and they must be able to administer it to themselves, among numerous other conditions.
Since the law took effect in Oregon, Beard said the state's suicide rate had declined.
"When someone has the option of the Death with Dignity Act, they don't need to use a weapon or drive their car in to a bridge abutment--they don't have to use violence on themselves," he said.
"Most people who are dying in Oregon die peacefully in their own homes," Beard added.
Also, he said many people who obtain medication to end their lives don't wind up taking it.
"Psychologists say it's because it gives them some measure of control over their own lives," he said.
He also said that, like the Nightingale Alliance, Compassion and Choices did not support "Kevorkian-esque techniques," and they opposed euthanasia.
While his organization is largely occupied in lobbying to change laws to allow assisted dying, Beard said his group opposed both euthanasia and Kevorkian's practices "because they're both against the law."
When pressed for an explanation, he simply answered, "They're against the law, and there's no need."
Regarding the "slippery slope" argument, Beard said it has been "absolutely disproven" by the recently completed Battin Assisted Suicide Study, led by University of Utah bioethicist Margaret Battin, published in October's Journal of Medical Ethics.
The report studied data collected for the past 10 years in Oregon and the past 20 years in the Netherlands, and concluded that legalized assisted suicide does not result in more deaths among certain terminally ill patients.
The report came under immediate fire when it was released, though, because she didn't disclose that she was a member of the advisory board of the Death with Dignity National Center in Portland.
Alex Schadenberg, head of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, published an article on " www.lifenews.com in which he wrote that the study "at best, can be referred to as propaganda."
He also dismissed its conclusions about the non-existence of the "slippery slope" because the data analyzed--the annual reports from the Oregon Department of Human Services--did not include information pertaining to the decision-making process of the person seeking assisted dying.
Also, the report did not address the issues raised by Harris about the increased tolerance for euthanasia seen in the Netherlands.
To that, Beard said, "This isn't the Netherlands. I can't imagine that happening here."
Terri's parents and siblings are a source of comfort. There is help here: www.terrisfight.org (you can email the Foundation for suggestions and support) for your mom.
And the vulnerable are sitting ducks for opportunists. They can be made dead against their will simply because they are unable to communicate. Or, if they can communicate, it is covered up so they can be murdered.
Some mandated by common law and custom will be self serving and brutal, but most will do the right thing. In all cases, when the government becomes involved, the life or death decisions will become "an overriding government interest".
Under a range of socialist programs this will be extremely dangerous and will lead to exactly what we all want to avoid: authority mandated euthanasia.
From Webster's 1828 Dictionary:
Dignity: True honor; nobleness or elevation of mind, consisting in a high sense of propriety, truth and justice, with an abhorrence of mean and sinful actions; opposed to meanness. In this sense, we speak of the dignity of mind, and dignity of sentiments. This dignity is based on moral rectitude; all vice is incompatible with true dignity of mind. The man who deliberately injures another, whether male or female, has no true dignity of soul.
A person who has dignity in life will have it in death no matter how undignified their external appearance is. And a person who has no dignity won't have it in death no matter how they look.
The culture of death has so bastardized the meaning of the word dignity that they have lost sight of what it actually means. By their definition, Jesus Christ, Who was beaten, bruised, bloodied and nailed to the Cross, did not have any dignity, but Hitler, who chose to commit suicide rather than be captured, tried and executed, met the culture of death's lofty goal of "death with dignity."
Ooops, you brought Hitler into it. You lose.
“buzz words for death cultists...”
Eh?? I see you didn’t even come close to answering my question. Please refer back to my last post and then answer.
Many thanks.
Is there some new rule that replaces with “Never forget” with “Never remember,” or are you just confused about Godwin’s Law?
Or maybe your problem is that you think Hitler is too important to be brought into this conversation? If so, I’d like to know how you chose Hitler as the most important one in his post, over and above Jesus Christ.
I suspect this is more a case of following the DU playbook. Choose a topic closely related to Hitler, such as euthanasia. Drop a few turds in the punchbowl, in a juvenile attempt to break down conservative values. Wait for someone to mention Hitler, then declare yourself the “winner,” revealing that it was nothing more than a trolling game for you all along.
Btw, Hitler was mentioned about 30 posts earlier in this thread. Why? Because this is a thread about euthanasia. It’s almost impossible to discuss the atrocities associated with Hitler without mentioning Hitler.
There’s something very interesting about your posts. Do I know you? Maybe by some other name?
DU playbook again. Strawman.
“DU playbook again. Strawman.”
Please explain your post. I was not the one who brought up the Constitution. I was merely responding to the person who did.
“There’s something very interesting about your posts. Do I know you? Maybe by some other name?”
Let’s not be so coy. Exactly what name would that be? (Donning my tinfoil now).
You misrepresented what FV said. You are now carrying it beyond the initial strawman faze, and bordering on lies.
You signed up here about the time things were really heating up, leading into the infamous Bug Zapper Thread. I have a pretty good idea who you are, but I’d rather not sully the other person’s name, in case my guess is wrong concerning them. I have no doubt about you though.
Please don your tinfoil now. I am not coy at all.
I noticed your posts are for the most part ascerbic, insulting, condescending and always come down on the other side of pro-life.
Are you pro life?
Like BykrBayb said, you do sound familiar, like an incarnation of someone we knew some time back. Your techniques are the same, quite familiar.
Since your techniques, arguments are so familiar, although not tied with FReepers in good standing, naturally, we wonder.
Are you a retread?
“Are you a retread?”
Nope
“Are you pro life?”
I am absolutely against abortion. However, I obviously have a different view on assisted suicide as allowed in Oregon. Is that opinion not allowed on FR? I’ve seen many other posters on FR who have my view of the Oregon law.
“I noticed your posts are for the most part ascerbic, insulting, condescending and always come down on the other side of pro-life.”
Some of my posts are indeed acerbic, but you can find many FReepers much more so if you care to look (ohioman is a good example). I do have strong opinions about certain subjects, and when FReepers call the Virginia Tech police cowards (don’t bother trying to deny that one, it’s documented) or continually assail everybody from NO or call all parents who send their children to public schools child abusers or something similarly inane, I respond.
So tell me, exactly who do you think I was in a past life? Your guess should be amusing. I’ve been a lurker a longer than I’ve been a member.
“You misrepresented what FV said. You are now carrying it beyond the initial strawman faze (sic), and bordering on lies.”
I misrepresented absolutely nothing at all about what FV said. Did or did not FV say that our leaders are constitutionally obligated to keep us from ending our lives as we see fit?
“I have a pretty good idea who you are, but I’d rather not sully the other person’s name, in case my guess is wrong concerning them. I have no doubt about you though.”
Obviously this other person you think I am is not somebody you care for or respect, so exactly how would you be sullying the name? Makes no sense at all.
“...leading into the infamous Bug Zapper Thread.”
Huh?
I love the way you and the other deathbots have determined that any mention of Hitler somehow invalidates a debate.
Does it bother you how closely associated Hitler is to the euthanasia movement? You see people who don't share Hitler's views aren't uncomfortable discussing his beliefs and macabre practices.
I notice that you completely avoided my real point which was that dignity has absolutely nothing to do with a person's physical appearance at the time of death. I also notice that you did not comment on what I wrote about Jesus Christ, do you believe that He didn't have dignity at the Crucifixion?
Very often true, but those are not necessary limits on the definition of murder. Murder means to do what only God has a right to do: to end somebody's life.
Your proposed definition is inadequate because it does not take account of murders in which the murderer may have perverted noble intentions and no personal gain in mind: e.g. the killing of a handicapped baby, slaughtering someone as a sacrifice because of the belief that Huitzilopochtli or some other a god or gods required it, etc.
In the case of a Just War or the death penalty, the state is specifically authorized to act in God's name by God's word:
Romans 13:4
For [the ruler] is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
Will FR embrace socialism to make way for Rudy Giuliani as a Republican presidential candidate?
A lot of the FRiberal deathbots showed their true colors on this thread.
It will be interesting to see if the old folks in America come to fear going to the hospital as much as they do in the Scandinavian countries...
The largest generation is about to start drawing SS AND facing the consequences of teaching our younger members that killing the “inconvenient” is a “right”. Let’s see how THIS plays out...
Probably, I can hardly blame the people in Scandinavian countries for being afraid. As this article points out, 37% of the euthanasia victims in Holland DID NOT CONSENT TO IT.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.