Free Republic

ROME - Just days before the 11th anniversary of the death of an Italian man whose battle to be allowed to die stimulated wide debate in the country over euthanasia, the Italian senate on Thursday approved a “living wills” measure strongly backed by right-to-die advocates. For the Catholic Church here, the vote marks a third major political setback in the last two years, coming on the heels of its failures to block adoption of civil unions in 2016, which the Church saw as a step toward gay marriage, and to push through a ius soli law granting immigrant children citizenship...

If you think the story I'm about to tell you sounds sensational, it is. If you think the information provided in this column sounds unbelievable, unfortunately, it is not. The fact of the matter is: America's health care system has gone far beyond the madness demonstrated by Dr. Jack Kevorkian who was convicted of murder in 1999. "Dr. Death" Kevorkian received a sentence of 10 to 25 years for the role he played in a nine-year crusade which led to the deaths of over 130 human beings. Many hospitals and nursing homes are now the new "killing fields" in America,...

Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, has warned US banks to end their “push back” against government pressure to draw up living wills that would make it easier to wind them up in case of failure. The US has already adopted formal powers, enshrined in the Wall Street reform act that passed this summer, allowing regulators to close down systemically important companies. But an international agreement is likely to be illusive, in part because of stark differences over the treatment of creditor rights between the US and Europe. The FDIC has 18 months under the Dodd-Frank reform...

When my mother was in her late 80s, I took her to a lawyer's office one sunny day to sign her "living will." We read over the questions and her answers, and she signed on the dotted line. She was pleased with the decisions that she had made weeks before. We went shopping afterward, and she bought an antique watch that caught my eye in a shop window. This was an appropriate gift, she joked, because she had named me to be in charge of her "lifetime." If the time should come that a doctor asks whether to prolong her...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Following the death of Terri Schiavo, the mainstream media and community groups like AARP promoted the signing of living wills. On the heels of the fourth anniversary of Terri's husband subjecting her to a painful euthanasia death, two pro-life groups are working together to promote a pro-life advanced directive.The National Right to Life has championed the Will to Live since 1992 and now the Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life legal group, has climbed on board to help promote it.As part of the project, thousands of attorneys allied with ADF across the country will make themselves...

Editor’s Note: Stephen Bloom is a Christian attorney with more than 20 years experience in private practice. He is a frequent media guest, speaker, and writer on Christianity and the law, a Lecturer in Management and Business at Messiah College, and a Consultant to the United Methodist Stewardship Foundation of Central Pennsylvania. He is a legal columnist for Good News Daily, former host of the "Practical Counsel - Christian Perspective" radio program, and founder of the Estate Planning Council of Cumberland County. Bloom has been actively involved in the leadership of numerous community and ministry organizations, including his church, where...

Editor's Note: Bill Beckman, Executive Director, Illinois Right to Life Committee, updates RFFM.org's readers regarding the issue of living wills. During the last week, RFFM.org posted a series on end of life issues which were first seen on RFFM.org in 2006. Beckman's latest column is an insightful look into the confusing and sometimes deadly result of signing a living will. While the Terri Schiavo case was in the news back in 2004, another Florida case got much less publicity. Hanford Pinette had signed both a living will and a durable power of attorney for health care that designated his wife...

OVERVIEW Like many others, I believed pro-life issues only concerned the saving of the innocent unborn from abortion. However, my naiveté regarding the sanctity of life topic was clearly evident after I learned about what is taking place in our country involving the care of those approaching life's end. Now, when I talk about life's end, I'm including the terminally ill, elderly, infirm and those whose circumstances have led them to face death from afar or while approaching the threshold of death's door. I learned of a series of articles written and edited by Bill Beckman, Executive Director, Illinois Right...

Precautions and Alternatives From the Editor: This is the second in a series of columns first posted on the Illinois Right to Life Committee's (IRLC) website [http://www.illinoisrighttolife.org/] written by Bill Beckman, IRLC's executive director. The RFFM.org re-posting of the column discusses how living wills can cancel out the wishes of patients and loved ones regarding end of life issues. Also, readers can learn how to seek out alternatives to living wills and find ways to ensure their end of life issues are respected and adhered to. Included are examples of how living wills have been used to disregard patients rights....

Through the next seven days, RFFM.org will publish a series of columns which first appeared on the Illinois Right to Life Committee's web site. The articles, edited and written by IRLC's executive director Bill Beckman, will address issues which include the dangers associated with living wills, hospice care and issues dealing with patient's rights. This highly important series will provide readers with information a family must have, in order to make educated decisions regarding the medical care of their loved ones. It is a must read. For more information on alternatives to living wills and other life-affirming issues, go to...

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...

When Buffalo Police Lieutenant Al Devlin was diagnosed with cancer of the esophogus in 2004, he made his brother Dan his healthcare proxy. Jessica Weinstein: "He knew it was serious?" Dan Devlin: "Very serious. It's a cancer that is very difficult." Days later, Dan Devlin signed as his brother's healthcare proxy. Al's wife Suzanne, signed as a witness. Al never put any additional wishes in writing. "He said I want you to give me your word that you will use your judgement and no one else's. He specifically did not want me to be influenced by his children or his...

The mother of a San Luis Obispo man who died after an attempted organ donation at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center last year claims she never gave hospital officials consent to take her son off life-support and was misinformed when agreeing to the organ harvest, according to a wrongful death lawsuit. Rosa Navarro also alleges in her June 29 civil lawsuit that a transplant surgeon misrepresented himself as her son’s doctor, an allegation the surgeon’s attorney strongly denies. She also said she agreed to the organ donation only because she believed her son had no chance of survival. Defendants in...

From the Editor: This is the second in a series of columns first posted on the Illinois Right to Life Committee's (IRLC) website [http://www.illinoisrighttolife.org/] written by Bill Beckman, IRLC's executive director. The RFFM.org re-posting of the column discusses how living wills can cancel out the wishes of patients and loved ones regarding end of life issues. Also, readers can learn how to seek out alternatives to living wills and find ways to ensure their end of life issues are respected and adhered to. Included are examples of how living wills have been used to disregard patients rights. The following was...

LONDON, August 16, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - British ministers decided Monday that new courts established to arbitrate life and death for patients in cases involving “living wills” and “powers of attorney” will have license to conduct their proceedings in secret away from public scrutiny, according to a report in the Daily Mail. According to the Mail, the new Court of Protection mandated by the Mental Capacity Act of 2005 “will be the first legal tribunal in Britain to hold life-and-death powers since the abolition of the death penalty for murder in 1965.” Under rules outlined in a “consultation paper“ by Lord...

Note from Daniel T. Zanoza: During future weeks, RFFM.org will publish a series of columns which first appeared on the Illinois Right to Life Committee's web site. The articles, edited and written by IRLC's executive director Bill Beckman, will address issues which include the dangers associated with living wills, hospice care and issues dealing with patient's rights. This highly important series will provide readers with information a family must have, in order to make educated decisions regarding the medical care of their loved ones. It is a must read. For more information on alternatives to living wills and other life-affirming...

Clinton: Americans 'reluctant to get to heaven' Says living wills 'will help to deal with the health-care crisis' Posted: November 17, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Joe Kovacs © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Bill Clinton called 'Most Influential Man in the World' in current Esquire In making a point about the importance of having a living will, ex-President Bill Clinton remarked that religious Americans are apparently hypocrites for having a fear of death. "It's interesting to me that we always proclaim – especially certain numbers of us – that we're the most religious big country in the world," said Clinton. "It may...

SEMINOLE – Death and dying, hospice, palliative care, advanced directives, living wills and bereavement are among the end-of-life issues to be presented by the Applied Ethics Institute of St. Petersburg College at the college’s Digitorium on the Seminole Campus on Thursday, Nov. 17, 7 to 9 p.m. The free forum will be moderated by Mary Tittle, Ph.D., RN, College of Nursing, St. Petersburg College and begin with presentations from David A. Weiland, M.D., The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast; Patricia Thieleman, Ph.D., RN, College of Nursing, St. Petersburg College; and Hanna Osman, Ph.D., College of Public Health, University of South...

Family members are investigating what they consider to be suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a nursing home patient at the center of a life and death tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo tragedy. Seventy-nine-year-old Jimmy Chambers died in the early morning hours of Oct. 24 after the tracheotomy tubes that deliver oxygen from a ventilator to a hole in his neck became unhooked. Family members were told Chambers, a resident of the Anne Maria Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in North Augusta, S.C., apparently pulled the interlocking tubes apart. "We're having it investigated. We're just incredulous," Chambers' daughter, Deanna Potter,...

He says he wants to live. But his wife, caregivers and South Carolina state officials are so focused on carrying out a decade-old, out-of-state living will that 79-year-old Jimmy Chambers can't get a word in edgewise. That's the account of 10 of Chambers's children and their spouses who signed sworn affidavits in an attempt to block their mother from removing his life-sustaining ventilator, which would cause his death. It's a case that's reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo controversy which captured the attention of millions around the world, in which a fault line opened up in the middle of a formerly...