While Canada shows a glimpse of sanity, Massachusetts wanders closer to the abyss.
Two threads by me.
VANCOUVER, August 18, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A lawsuit filed in British Columbia by the Farewell Foundation for the Right to Die challenging Canadian laws against assisted suicide was rejected by Supreme Court Judge Lynn Smith on August 17.
The case was one of two being heard in B.C. Supreme Court.
Farewell Foundation’s suit was based on a refusal by the British Columbia Registrar of Companies to register the group because the aims of the organization - to establish a non-profit corporation, along the lines of Swiss-based assisted suicide groups, for the purpose of assisting the suicides of its members - contravene the criminal code.
Judge Smith ruled the Farewell Foundation’s case did not have standing because the suit was filed on behalf of anonymous members.
“Justice Smith found that if the Farewell Foundation wished to bring a constitutional challenge, the members whose health is deteriorating must identify themselves,” the group’s lawyer Jason Gratl said in a statement.
Donnaree Nygard, lawyer for the federal attorney general, argued the case was “hypothetical” because the plaintiffs were not facing criminal charges for assisted suicide, according to the Vancouver Sun.
However, Judge Smith informed the suicide group that they were welcome to apply for intervener status in another right-to-die case filed by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) on behalf of the family of Kay Carter, who died by assisted suicide at the Swiss Dignitas suicide center in January 2010, and Gloria Taylor, who lives with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Alex Schadenberg, director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC), says his organization is prepared to intervene in the BCCLA lawsuit as well.
“The Farewell Foundation case attempted to legalize ‘Swiss style’ assisted suicide, while the BCCLA (Carter/Taylor) case is attempting to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide via the court,” Schadenberg said.
“The EPC is particularly concerned with the language of the BCCLA Notice of Application,” Schadenberg warned, “which indicates a particularly negative attitude to the lives of people with disabilities. Living with a disability is not a life not worth living but rather a challenge to society to enable people with disabilities to live with equality and acceptance.”
“The EPC recognizes that the laws that prohibit euthanasia and assisted suicide are designed to protect people in the most vulnerable time of their lives, and rejects the concept that it is necessary to legalize euthanasia and/or assisted suicide in order to ensure a ‘death with dignity’.”
Schadenberg pointed out that in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, the suicide rate has steadily climbed since 2000 with Oregon’s suicide rate now being 35% higher than the national average. This corresponds with other trends that suggest that the social acceptance of assisted suicide creates a suicide contagion effect.
“The EPC considers the BCCLA case to be dangerous to public safety and a recipe for elder abuse,” Schadenberg added.
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QUINCY — It didn’t take Roy Almeida more than a minute to shape an opinion about whether people with a terminal illness should have a legal right to kill themselves with lethal medications.
“I think that anyone who finds they’re terminal, and there’s no turning back, and they decide they want to go, they should have that right,” said the 72-year-old Quincy resident as he sat over morning coffee at Barry’s Deli in Wollaston.
The question dropped on Almeida’s breakfast table could be dropped in front of Massachusetts voters next year if a ballot initiative filed early this month with the state attorney general can pass legal reviews and muster some 70,000 signatures from registered voters.
The proposal to legalize assisted suicide for some terminally ill patients is likely to ignite a lot of debate. It was a controversial enough subject that 643 Patriot Ledger readers chimed in on a website questionnaire.
Nearly three-quarters – 474 – said they would vote in favor of such a referendum.
Backers of the ballot initiative have hired Quincy-based political consultant Michael Clarke to help push the “Death With Dignity Act” onto the 2012 ballot.
The proposed law would permit patients “with a terminal disease that will cause death within six months” to obtain drugs to “end his or her life in a humane and dignified manner.” The plan also requires the patient to be capable of making medical decisions and to consult with physicians.
Similar laws were passed in Oregon and Washington. In Oregon last year, 96 prescriptions for lethal medications were written, and 59 people took their own lives with those drugs.
Oregon enacted its own Death with Dignity Act in 1997, and a Brookline expert on the topic of assisted suicide said Oregon’s law is the standard to emulate.
“It was a wonderful experiment in Oregon when they started, and the experiment worked out,” said Dr. Milton Heifetz, a retired neurosurgeon and former professor at Boston College Law School.
Hiefetz cautioned that the decision should rest with the patient and not the doctor and added that the potential pitfall of these laws is a doctor’s terminal diagnosis.
“It’s very difficult to determine what is six months,” said Heifetz. “But I will say that it should certainly be passed if it’s written right.”
An opponent of such laws is Dr. Michael Grodin, a professor of health law at the Boston University School of Public Health, who called the initiative a symptom of a deeper problem, but not a solution.
“The problem is people don’t die very well. They die in hospitals and in pain when they should be at home with hospice care and with their loved ones,” he said. “I am very wary of assisted suicide when 45 million people don’t have health insurance or access to home health aides. The real issue is to support dying people.”
Outside of academia, the debate seems to elicit gut reactions from people.
Jude Sherman, who was shopping for used books at the Goodwill Store in Quincy, said she would vote against an assisted-suicide ballot question.
“It’s a slippery slope when you start that. Some people might just be weary of life and depressed,” she said. “I do believe people can have good and bad days and might make a bad decision.”
