NHS Nightmare: "If We Say You're Dead, You're Dead - Don't Argue"

This would be funny if it weren’t so serious, AND a good look into the kind of bureaucracy-gone-mad socialized health care known as the UK’s National Health Service. It’s a very similar system, by the way, to what Obamacare will turn out to be. Run away! Run away!!

Sorry, you can't have an appointment... you're dead!': Hospital refuses to see cancer sufferer because he's 'deceased'

A cancer sufferer was told he could not book a hospital appointment - because records showed he was dead.

Alan Campbell rang a booking system phone line after becoming worried that the disease may have spread to his throat.

But when he tried to make an appointment with the NHS Choose and Book system, a telephone operator informed him their records showed him as 'deceased'. more

Czechs Seem To Like The Pro-Death Idea Of Euthanasia

Well, what a shock . . . another European country in the tank for euthanasia. Stay tuned for the valiant pro-deathers to introduce law to make it so. Aren’t we all terribly fortunate???

Poll: Czechs keep liberal approach to abortion, euthanasia

Prague, June 14 (CTK) - A major part of Czechs keep a tolerant approach to abortion and euthanasia, and want capital punishment to be reintroduced, a CVVM agency's poll has shown. . . .

As far as euthanasia is concerned, people's opinions have not profoundly changed in the past four years. According to 61 percent of Czechs, the national law should make euthanasia possible, while 29 percent are opposed to this. more

Inmate Claiming Legit Assisted Suicide - Judge Didn't Buy It - Good!!

The yo-yo who helped his cellmate commit suicide and then claimed assisted suicide as a legal defense has been sentenced. The judge didn’t buy it. Good.

Inmate sentenced in assisted suicide case

JUNEAU — A judge has sentenced a Wisconsin inmate to 27 months in prison for helping his cellmate commit suicide last year.

During sentencing Friday, Dodge County Circuit Court Judge Andrew Bissonnette said he questioned whether 20-year-old Adam Peterson could have

succeeded in hanging himself without help from Joshua Walters. more

The Myth That Assisted Suicide Is Only For The Terminally Ill

We’ll probably never know why two talented youngsters decided to kill themselves. What we do know is that they probably died using techniques championed by Aussie’s “Doctor Death,” Philip Nitschke. I find it ironic that in the UK every time somebody shoots someone else there are renewed calls for banning all firearms, yet nobody seems in a hurry to ban Nitschke’s “suicide by computer."

‘Suicide by laptop’ riddle of two brilliant students found dead in hotel room

Two brilliant university students were found dead together in a hotel room after apparently rigging up a laptop to deliver lethal injections in what is thought to have been a suicide pact.

Friends Robert Miller, 20, and 19-year-old James Robertson – both described as highly intelligent – were found slumped in chairs.

Their bodies were discovered facing each other at the £65-a-night Ramada Jarvis Hotel in Ayr – 80 miles from where they were both studying for joint maths and physics degrees at Edinburgh University. more

Wisconsin Case Recognizes Assisted Suicide For What It Is - Killing

Well, at least this Wisconsin judge followed the law in convicting an inmate of assisted suicide for helping his cellmate kill himself – in some other places in the US, and certainly in several countries in Europe, this guy would have been celebrated as “helping” his cell mate to a “dignified death.”

Judge sentences Wis. inmate for role in suicide

JUNEAU, Wis. — A Wisconsin inmate was sentenced to 27 months in prison Friday for assisted suicide after describing how he helped his cellmate, a killer, hang himself last year.

Joshua Walters, 21, said he agreed to help Adam Peterson take his life after hearing for weeks about how much he wanted to die. Peterson, 20, was facing life in prison on a first-degree intentional homicide charge in the 2008 stabbing death of Madison man Joel Marino. He felt horrible about killing Marino and for letting down his family, Walters said. more

Peter Singer Just Wants Us All Dead - Aren't We Lucky?

Peter Singer gets stranger and stranger. Its amazing what he gets away with because he’s a university professor. This, from last week, where he makes some pretty dangerous points. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating his outlandish ideas – he’s revered by millions, especially the pro-deathers.

Should This Be the Last Generation?

Have you ever thought about whether to have a child? If so, what factors entered into your decision? Was it whether having children would be good for you, your partner and others close to the possible child, such as children you may already have, or perhaps your parents? For most people contemplating reproduction, those are the dominant questions. Some may also think about the desirability of adding to the strain that the nearly seven billion people already here are putting on our planet’s environment. But very few ask whether coming into existence is a good thing for the child itself. Most of those who consider that question probably do so because they have some reason to fear that the child’s life would be especially difficult — for example, if they have a family history of a devastating illness, physical or mental, that cannot yet be detected prenatally. more

Will Incentivizing Organ Donation Lead To A Black Market In Organ Trafficking?

Sally Satel is an MD who had a kidney transplant a few years ago, and it’s changed her perspective on how we should go about organ donation. She’s firmly in the let's-incentivize-the-donors camp. However, I’m not convinced by her arguments addressing how this won’t become abused and lead to a black market in organ trafficking.

Altruism + incentive = more organ donations

In March 2006 a friend gave me her right kidney. I had been searching for a donor for more than a year — my kidneys mysteriously gave out in 2004 — and things were not going well.

Three friends offered to donate but backed out. Frustrated at first, I soon found myself oddly relieved. I dreaded the constricting obligation that would surely come with accepting such a sacrifice. I wished I could buy a kidney just to avert the emotional debt.

Soon, however, I wanted to buy one for a more obvious reason: without a new kidney, I would spend years on life-draining dialysis. Mercifully, in late 2005 I received an e-mail from Virginia, a casual friend who lived halfway across the country. Virginia was a brilliant writer who had heard from a mutual friend that I needed a kidney. more

UK: National Health Service Brutality II

Well, as we know, socialized medicine never rations care – uh huh. Read this piece, where a Scottish study found that for women, the older they were, the less likely they would be offered some treatments for breast cancer. That’s exactly what Obamacare will do here in the US, trust me.

patients receive 'lower level of treatment', claims charity

OLDER breast cancer patients are much less likely to receive surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy as part of their treatment, a charity claimed today.

Breakthrough Breast Cancer said it is "wrong" that not all women have equal access to such care.

The charity is calling on the Scottish Government to ensure older patients are treated on the basis of clinical need.

About 4000 women in Scotland are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, with the disease claiming more than 1000 lives annually.

However Breakthrough Breast Cancer said patients aged 80 or above are 40 times less likely to be treated with surgery than younger patients.

Older women with cancer are "significantly less likely" to get chemotherapy and radiotherapy. more

UK: National Health Service Brutality I

For those of you who think nationalized medicine is such a brilliant idea that we in the US should get it too, read this – a UK mom, terminally ill, is being refused an expensive drug because it’s not going to make her better. The fact that it may well give her enough survival time to see her son go to school is completely ignored by the NHS murderers.

Family 'just wants more time' with mother denied costly cancer drug

A devastated family today attacked doctors for refusing to give a mother life-prolonging drugs that could let her live to see her son start school. more

Kudos For Medical Students In New Jersey For Committing To The Terminally Ill

Here’s an encouraging and innovative program at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School in Newark. They kept running into terminally ill patients who faced the prospect of dying alone. They decided to change that, pairing up each patient with a medical student who remains their support until their death. What a contrast tp the pro-deathers who can’t wait for people to kill themselves no matter what.

Learning Bedside Manners: When Students Are All EARS for Dying Patients

IN the last two months of his life, Nick Macioci suffered the ravages of cancer while grappling with the heartache of not being able to attend a funer- al for his mother, also a victim of the insidious disease. Now, Barbara Ciricillo holds onto mem- ories of the compassionate care her brother received at University Hospital (UH) in Newark during his last days and credits a student- inspired initiative at NJMS with encouraging him when she could not be there herself. more, beginning p. 25 of the pdf 

Connecticut Slaps Down Pro-Deathers

Good for Connecticut, but there’s no time to celebrate. If we know anything at all about the pro-deathers, it’s that they’re manically persistent and will try again to foist their death wish on the rest of us very soon.

Connecticut Trial Court Rejects Attempt to Overturn Ban on Assisted Suicide

Hartford, CT (LifeNews.com) -- A Connecticut trial court judge rejected a lawsuit by euthanasia advocates seeking to overturn the Connecticut ban on assisted suicide. had the lawsuit been successful, it could have made the New England state the fourth after Oregon, Washington, and Montana to allow assisted suicides.

Gary Blick and Ronald Levine, two Fairfield County doctors, brought the lawsuit with the support of the pro-euthanasia group Compassion & Choices and state attorneys hoped Judge Julia Aurigemma would dismiss it.

Judge Aurigemma did just that -- and dismissed the petition, although the backers of the lawsuit are expected to file an appeal. more

In Belgium: No, It's Not Death With Dignity - It's Cold Blooded Murder

Forgive my chuckle at this research from the Canadian Medical Association Journal, which reports that in Belgium, in spite of all the “transparency,” “legal checks,” etc., not only are doctors sometimes the killers, but nurses as well, and surprise, surprise, a whole bunch of people were killed without ever having requested it. This, in a sane world, is called murder. Ah, but the pro-deathers call it ”death with dignity.” Aren’t we lucky??

The role of nurses in physician-assisted deaths in Belgium

. . . Overall, 128 nurses reported having cared for a patient who received euthanasia and 120 for a patient who received life-ending drugs without his or her explicit request. . . . life-ending drugs were administered by the nurse in 12% of the cases of euthanasia, as compared with 45% of the cases of assisted death without an explicit request. In both types of assisted death, the nurses acted on the physician’s orders but mostly in the physician’s absence. . . . Interpretation: By administering the life-ending drugs in some of the cases of euthanasia, and in almost half of the cases without an explicit request from the patient, the nurses in our study operated beyond the legal margins of their profession. more

Scotland: Assisted Suicide Foxes Watching The Parliamentary Henhouse

We’ve seen this before. For example, Oregon’s 1997 assisted suicide law was written under heavy influence of the pro-deathers. Now the same is happening in Scotland. MP Margo MacDonald (she of calling for assisted suicide for children last year) is appointing an pro-deather to a panel discussing the acceptability of legalized assisted suicide. Gee, why aren’t I shocked?

Pro-lifers hit out over suicide bill committee

AN author who has argued for assisted suicide has been appointed adviser to the Holyrood committee scrutinising MSP Margo MacDonald's bill calling for sick people to be given the right to die.

Pro-life campaigners are angered by the appointment of Alison Britton, the co-author of The Case For Assisted Suicide, to her position as the committee's only adviser and sought assurances that she will be impartial. more

Supreme Court Nominee On Assisted Suicide

Friday’s document dump of US Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s missives during the Clinton administration provide at least some info on what she thinks of the feds stepping in to ban assisted suicide. She thinks that it’s not a good idea.

New Docs: Kagan on Assisted Suicide Law

As a mid-level White House staffer, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan argued it was a "terrible idea" to pursue federal legislation in response to a state assisted suicide law, in a hand-written aside on a memo buried in more than 40,000 documents [1] released Friday from the Bill Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.

The 1998 document [page 30] [2] reveals Kagan's previously unknown view on how she believed the federal government should respond to an Oregon law allowing assisted suicides. Kagan writes in her own hand the following:

Karen Popp called this week to say that DOJ is ready to opine that Oregon doctors who assist suicides are not violating the Controlled Substances Act. (This is contrary to an initial DEA ruling.) We need to decide whether to accompany this ruling with a request for new legislation making assisted suicide a federal crime. I think this is a fairly terrible idea, but I know Begala likes it. Do we need to run some kind of policy process? Elena. more

Here's Why Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia Are Dangerous - You Might Survive Your Terminal Illness

Here’s a letter to the Montreal Gazette which speaks more eloquently in a very few words than many of us could ever do in years of blogging.

Persuaded to live with dignity

I'm a retired bookkeeper, who lives in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal. Our law was enacted via a ballot initiative, for which I voted.

In 2000, I was diagnosed with colon cancer and told that I had six months to a year to live. I knew that our law had passed, but I didn't know exactly how to go about doing it. I asked one of my doctors, but he didn't really answer me.

Instead, he encouraged me not to give up and ultimately I decided to fight. I had both chemotherapy and radiation, and I am truly happy to be alive! That was 10 years ago, and if my doctors had believed in assisted suicide, I would be dead. I thank each of them for helping me choose "life with dignity."

Italy Slaps Down The Dutch Penchant For Killing

Good for Italy. A Dutch husband and his wife, who is in a persistently nonresponsive state, live in Italy. He’s trying to kill her under Dutch law, but, commendably, the Italians aren’t biting.

Dutch euthanasia directive doesn’t travel

What is the validity of a written "euthanasia directive" that details a Dutch citizen's wish to die for authorities in another European country? Answer: it has no validity, at least not in Italy. De Volkskrant recounts the story of a Dutch-Italian Anne Busato (age 63), who has remained in a vegetative state following a stroke in 2009. Twenty years ago Ms Busato went to the trouble of writing a request that she be removed from life support in the event of a persistent vegetative state or irreversible coma. However, her husband has not been able to obtain permission to carry out her wishes. The euthanasia law that applies in the Netherlands, does not apply for Dutch citizens living abroad. “The Italians believe that euthanasia is murder. They say that in the Netherlands, we kill all kinds of sick people, sometimes even babies,” explains her husband to Volkskrant. To bring his wife back to the Netherlands, he has taken a case to the Hague to be recognised as her legal guardian, but Italy refuses to acknowledge the court ruling. more

Pro-Deather Propaganda Reaches Germany (Of All Places)

So it spreads, the pro-deather message, that is. Here’s a fight in Germany where a woman and her lawyer conspired to euthanize her mother – illegally, but, as we’ve seen elsewhere, this is increasingly irrelevant in the drumbeat for death.

German Criminal Court Considers Watershed Assisted Suicide Case

KARLSRUHE, Germany, June 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) is expected to rule this month on whether the removal of artificially administered food and water constitutes murder or is simply the cessation of “medical treatment.” 

The case surrounds an attempt to euthanise “Erika K,” who had been comatose since a cerebral hemorrhage in 2002. The woman’s daughter claimed her mother had previously expressed a desire not to have her life artificially prolonged and asked nursing home staff to discontinue her mother’s “artificial diet.” The nursing home initially agreed, but then backed down.

The daughter, known as “Elke G” in court, said that following the advice of her lawyer, Wolfgang Putz, she used scissors to cut the gastric tube from her mother’s abdominal wall. Upon discovery, nurses inserted a new feeding tube and called the police.

Although Erika K died shortly after of unrelated causes, the daughter and her lawyer were indicted for attempted manslaughter. Elke G. was acquitted, but Putz received a nine month suspended sentence. more

More From Baroness Campbell Opposing The Pro-deathers

Here’s the UK’s Baroness Campbell’s rationale not to weaken UK laws against assisted suicide. It’s an eloquent and completely rational counterweight to the pro-deathers in the UK (and the rest of the world) who are working as hard as they can to make assisted suicide and euthanasia available anywhere, anytime, for any reason. Go Baroness!!

Disabled people need help to live, not die

I've been a campaigner for most of my life. I've not been alone. I've worked with other disabled people and great allies in parliament and elsewhere. Mostly, what we've wanted for disabled people has been almost universally applauded: better access, more support, equal rights. Opposition came from those holding the purse strings but we kept badgering away, arguing that equality for disabled people was good for everyone in society. By strength in numbers we scored notable victories, such as the Disability Discrimination Act. The wider public accepted that it was wrong for disabled people to receive inferior treatment. more

Good For The UK's Baroness Campbell For Opposing Assisted Suicide Legislation Changes

Baroness Campbell in the UK has been a very vocal opposition to the pro-deathers who are chipping away at laws that make assisted sucide a crime. The Baroness has lived with her severe disability for years and sees no need to legalize anyone helping her, or anyone else, for that matter, from kicking the bucket.

Disability campaigner Baroness Campbell urges MPs not to relax assisted suicide law

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton wants politicians to sign a charter declaring that disabled and terminally ill people should receive protection and support services, to prevent them feeling under pressure to end their lives prematurely.

She is also calling on the Commons to resist any new attempts to legalise assisted suicide – where one person helps another die – or euthanasia, in which doctors deliver the fatal dose. more

UK Disability Community Opposition To Assisted Suicide Strengthens

It’s good to see the disability community in the UK finally getting together and making a stand against the creeping threat of assisted suicide and euthanasia in the UK. I hope other disability communities world-wide follow suit.

'Right to live' group targets MPs

A new campaign by disability rights activists to limit the right to die launches at Westminster on Thursday.

The campaign - called Not Dead Yet UK Resistance - will be asking MPs to sign a charter in support of its aims.

It says that disabled and terminally ill people should enjoy the same legal protection as everyone else. more

Why Surprise That Pro-Deathers Want Killing Even For People With Serious Mental Illness?

The more astonishing thing about this report from the UK is how surprised everyone seems to be that the Swiss death-clinic, run by Dignitas, was actually willing to help kill a man who was clearly psychologically disturbed. It seems it’ll take a while to convince the media that what the pro-deathers really want is death anywhere, anytime, for any reason. And in whatever state if mind you happen to be. Awful.

Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas probed after 'patient suffering from paranoid schizophrenia was given suicide kit'

Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas is under investigation over claims that it ignored a patient's distressed mental condition to give him drugs to end his own life.

Strict assisted suicide laws in Switzerland state that each patient must be of sound mind and able to understand the consequences of their actions.

But now details have emerged of a patient who was allegedly given a DIY suicide kit prescribed by a Zurich gynaeologist despite suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. more

Montana State Senator Seeks To Overturn Court Ruling On Assisted Suicide

Montana state senator Greg Hinkle has introduced legislation that will overturn the backdoor legalizing of assisted suicide that began with the Baxter case. He needs to be applauded and supported fully.

Montana Patient Protection Act

I have introduced the Montana Patient Protection Act which prohibits physician-homicide and physician-assisted suicide ("aid in dying"). The Act is in response to the Supreme Court decision Baxter v. State of Montana. This Act is based on Montana's public policy to prevent elder abuse and to value all citizens. more

When Faced With Serious Illness, He Chose To Live

Here’s someone who has walked the walk, considered assisted suicide, didn’t do it, and was able to be a great support for his family. This says it all about why we don’t need the assisted suicide/euthanasia route – life is too precious.

Dad who survived cancer against the odds tells why he’s so against assisted suicide

A DAD-OF-THREE has spoken of his trauma after he conquered the terminal cancer that had convinced him to end his life – only to see his wife killed by the same disease. . . .

After doctors told him he could have as little as six weeks to live, he started to discuss the prospect of assisted suicide with his beloved wife Lynne – fearful of the effect his debilitating illness would have on his children, Jody, then 10, Jamie, six, and baby Zac, who was just six weeks old. The cancer went into full remission for 11 years – allowing him to attend his daughter’s wedding, and see all three children forge successful careers. . . .

Jody, now 30, is a building society manager, Jamie, 26, is a teacher and Zac, 20, runs his own gardening business.

When the cancer returned in 2001, he was given an operation that left him in a wheelchair – but crucially still able to be there for his kids.

And they would need him to be – because the next year he tragically and unexpectedly lost his wife to liver cancer at the age of 49. more

Aussie Drumbeat To Legalize Euthanasia Continues

Here’s some commentary on the second reading of a proposed euthanasia bill in Aussie. It’s the usual death-with-dignity claptrap we’ve come to expect. It remains to be seen whether this will make it into law, but I’m not betting it won’t, I assure you.

Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 2009: Second Reading Speech

I am proud to introduce the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 2009. This bill will afford immunity from criminal prosecution and civil ramifications to a person who assists a suffering terminally ill patient to die, provided that person acts in accordance with the terms of the bill. This bill is not about legalising suicide. This bill is not about

devaluing life or about pushing the boundaries of morality. This bill is about giving choice to a suffering terminally ill person and about providing civil and criminal immunity to those people who assist such a person to carry out that choice. This bill is about nothing more than that. more

The Myth of Euthanasia "Choice"

Bill Reichel is a highly respected scholar and author who knows more than most people about euthanasia, especially in the Netherlands. Here he makes some brief, but very telling points about the myth that euthanasia is a “choice.”

Euthanasia doesn't assure choice

Dutch doctors have practised assisted suicide and euthanasia for decades. Although the law calls for performing assisted suicide and euthanasia with the patient's consent, it is often involuntary. The law also calls for obtaining a second opinion from another physician, but this is often not done. more