Here's Why We Should Always Err On The Side Of Life

Here’s why we should never, ever, assume people in persistent unresponsive states are “brain dead,” or to use a common epithet, “vegetables.” Just before Richard Rudd’s ventilator was turned off, a doctor checked one more time. Guess what, Richard was very much alive and able to communicate.

Blink, and you live – doctors' message to man in a coma

Richard Rudd and his father at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridgeshire. Photograph: BBC Wales/Rudd family

A man who was left paralysed and seemingly unable to communicate following a traffic accident was saved from having his life support machine turned off when he managed to blink three times to tell doctors that he did not want to die. more

Gee, I’m shocked, I tell you – another person claiming an assisted suicide or euthanasia defense for murder. Why would that be? Could it be the influence of the pro-deathers??

Edinburgh man jailed for trying to kill disabled wife

An Edinburgh pensioner who admitted attempting to murder his disabled wife has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.

John Millar, 67, claimed he was trying to end her suffering when he attacked Phyllis Millar, 65, at their home in Ravelston on 28 June 2009.

Mrs Millar, who has multiple sclerosis, denied claims by her husband that she said she wanted to die. more

Final Exit Network Heats Up The Propaganda

Here’s the prodeathers propaganda in full cry. Final Exit Network, some of its members under federal indictment, instead of hunkering down, goes on the attack with even more ads now popping up in New Jersey. Chutzpah? In spades!!!

Right-To-Die Billboard Causes Uproar In N.J.

HILLSIDE, N.J. (CBS) ― The message on a billboard in New Jersey is stirring up a lot of controversy. It centers on whether a person suffering from a painful disease has the right to take his or her own life.

The billboard looms over a busy section of Route 22 in Hillside, facing the eastbound lanes. Some drivers said they are confused by the message.

"My Life My Death My Choice. So what does that mean?" Hillside resident Steve Leo said. more

Euthanasia Now Legal In S. Korea? Not So Fast . . .

Well, despite the media saying that euthanasia is now legal in South Korea, maybe not, because the law simply says that if a patient declines further treatment, and that that decision may result in death, then such a decision is legal. This, of course, is not euthanasia because any patient has the right to refuse any treatment. This is different from euthanasia, where someone else deliberately puts you to death.

S.Korean legalises euthanasia for terminally ill

SEOUL — South Korean doctors will be allowed to remove life support from terminally ill patients after confirming their wish to die, under new medical guidelines on mercy killing, officials said Wednesday. more

Wesley Smith Must Be Doing Something Right In Aussie

My goor friend and colleague Wesley Smith is giving the Aussie pro-deathers fits. Go Wesley!!

I’m Not “Scare Mongering,” I’m Fact Mongering

Australian pro euthanasia forces are responding to my advocacy, accusing me of scare mongering. more

Aussie Pro-Deathers Go After Wesley Smith

Gee, what a shock, my good friend and colleague Wesley Smith, in Aussie campaigning against assisted suicide and euthanasia, is getting flack from the pro-deathers.

Anti-euthanasia campaign 'scaremongering'

Tasmania's Dying with Dignity group has accused an anti-euthanasia advocate of scaremongering about the impacts of legalising assisted suicide.

U.S. campaigner Wesley Smith has warned legislation allowing voluntary euthanasia will lead to increasing numbers of people being eligible for assisted suicide, including those who are not terminally ill. more

Where Did The Pet Euthanasia Drugs Go???

Well, who knows of this left is so that someone somewhere in Canada can have a “dignified” death. However, given the pro-deather push in Canada, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was for that purpose, and once the dastardly deed is done, that some “brave” soul comes out of the woodwork to talk about how they helped in the “dignified, loving act of assisted dying.” Sorry, excuse me while I go throw up.

Police issue warning after euthanasia drug stolen from Calgary vet clinic

CALGARY - Police say a dangerous euthanasia narcotic was among a haul of drugs stolen during a break-in at a southeast Calgary veterinary clinic over the weekend.

The Douglas Square Pet Clinic, at 11520 24 St. S.E., was broken into Saturday evening and a safe containing a large quantity of veterinary narcotics was stolen, police said.

Among them was a drug called, Euthansol, which police describe as a powerful and rapid euthanasia narcotic. more

The Euthanasia On The Spanish Plain . . .

Ho-hum. Another Euro country report that a majority want to have kicking the bucket to be a legalized, nay “dignified” event. My suggestion: Go ahead, gratify those who think we’re killing the planet because too many of us exist.

OVER HALF SPANIARDS IN FAVOUR OF EUTHANASIA

A study titled Social values and drugs presented in Madrid last Tuesday revealed that over 60 percent of Spaniards aged between 15 and 64 years of age are completely or partially in favour of euthanasia, but only 21 percent view suicide as permissible. more

Wesley Smith Slaps Down The Aussie Pro-Deathers

My good friend & colleague Wesley Smith is doing a great job taking on the pro-deathers in Aussie. Anything you can get written by Wesley – read it, he absolutely knows what he’s talking about.

Euthanasia 'bad medicine, worse policy': campaigner

An anti-euthanasia advocate from the United States wants Tasmanian politicians to reject assisted suicide legislation as bad medicine and even worse public policy.

Wesley Smith has been brought to Australia by the Right to Life lobby group to lobby in Tasmania, Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, and Western Australia. more

More Arguments Against Euthanasia

Euthanasia False Light Part II

Here's the answer to the pro-deathers. Part 2 tomorrow.

Montana Seeks To Formally Legalize Assisted Suicide

In Baxter v. Montana, a state judge opened the legal back door to assisted suicide perhaps becoming legal in that state. Predictably, the pro-deathers are at it again. This time they’ve convinced a state senator to introduce formal legislation to completely legalize assisted suicide in Montana. Let’s hope they fail. I’ll keep you up to date on this important issue.

Missoula lawmaker wants to implement court’s physician-assisted suicide ruling

HELENA — A Missoula legislator is having a bill drafted to implement a 2009 Montana Supreme Court decision to allow physician-assisted suicide when a terminally ill patient requests it.

Democratic Rep. Dick Barrett, who is unopposed for re-election, said he will introduce the bill in the 2011 Legislature, which convenes in January. He asked the legislative staff to draft the bill. more

Even More Ugly Euthanasia Truths From The Netherlands

My good friend and colleague Alex Schadenberg alerted us to a little bit of nasty truth seeping out of that quagmire that is legalized euthanasia in the Netherlands – that what is now law started as a behind-the-scenes movement by a very few death-doctors who were willing to do all the hard work. They succeed, unfortunately.

Dutch Doctor Reveals Euthanasia Laws Passed through Covert Planning Phase

Commentary by Alex Schadenberg, Chairman, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

July 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A letter written by Aycke Smook, a retired physician from Bergen Am Zee in the Netherlands, was published on the euthanasia lobby listserve to commemorate the death of Adelbert Josephus Jitta, a retired Dutch Prosecutor who had worked to change the euthanasia laws in the Netherlands.

The letter explains how Jitta and Smook worked together to change the Dutch laws by establishing euthanasia protocols in the hospital, by undermining the Dutch euthanasia law and by prosecuting cases that were designed to be struck down by the courts to establish precedents that allowed euthanasia. more

Starving Patients A Form Of Euthanasia? Yup, Could Be

More from Scotland: NHS patients starving to death because they are not helped to eat. Now, this is obviously another triumph of socialized medicine, but if you think in at least some places there isn’t some sentiment that not helping people eat will grease the wheels to their death, I’d say you were pretty naïve.

Malnutrition of NHS patients ‘is form of euthanasia’

One of the country’s leading health campaigners has urged the Scottish Government to urgently tackle the problem of malnutrition of the elderly and vulnerable in the nation’s hospitals, likening the problem to a form of “euthanasia”.

Dr Jean Turner – executive director of Scotland Patients Association (SPA), a GP and former independent MSP – warned that hundreds of patients, particularly the elderly, are languishing in hospital beds undernourished because they are not given help with feeding. more

Don't Worry Scotland: Prosecution Probably Won't Happen

The Scots are currently getting their kilts in a knot over a proposal to legalize assisted suicide. Now the medicos are worried that if the proposal succeeds, nurses might be vulnerable to be convicted of homicide or manslaughter. My somewhat cynical view is that the medical community shouldn’t worry – once assisted suicide is legalized, the authorities will not have the you-know-what to prosecute. Look at what’s happened in England.

Warning over controversial proposals to assist suicide

Controversial proposals to legalise assisted suicide could lead to health-care workers being criminalised, it has been claimed.

The Royal College of Nursing in Scotland (RCN) fears that staff, who may feel pressurised to help a terminally-ill patient they have developed a relationship with, could be prosecuted. more

Speaking Out Against The Tasmanian Push For Assisted Suicide

I don’t think clergy speak out strongly enough about the evils of assisted sucide and euthanasia. Here’s an exception, addressing the renewed push for assisted suicide in Tasmania.

Australian prelate speaks out against euthanasia

After Tasmania’s attorney general spoke in favor of a bill that would permit euthanasia in the Australian state, Archbishop Adrian Doyle of Hobart denounced her support of the measure. more

Assisted Suicide Against Scottish Values - Absolutely!!

This is a good piece that lays out the basic for and against arguments around assisted suicide. The Scottish author concludes that legalized assisted suicide is not the way to go.

Debate is a matter of life or death for scots

Published Date: 06 July 2010 Margo MacDonald's bid to legalise assisted dying in Scotland has reignited the debate on euthanasia. Here supporter Libby Wilson and critic Dr Rosemary Barrett debate the proposals being put before MSPs.

. . . Finally, euthanasia is not consistent with historic Scottish values. We must remember that the actions of a few profoundly affect many others. The legalisation of euthanasia would betray our Scottish values by acting in the interest of only a small segment of society.

Passing the Bill would clash with our historic standards of caring for the whole of society, not simply submitting to a vocal and influential few. more

Mission Impossible: OK Assisted Suicide & Then Review To See If It Should Continue

This piece commenting on the pro-deathers trying to legalize assisted suicide in Scotland try to be even handed, but they’re engaging in seriously wishful thinking if they think that assisted suicide could be introduced and then reviewed after a while to see if it was working or not. NOT!! Once it’s available, it’ll never get repealed.

Euthanasia - 'The issue is not going to go away quietly'

THE debate over euthanasia is one of the most complex and emotive facing society today. . . . In the circumstances, there is a lot of merit in the Royal Society of Edinburgh's proposal that the results of any introduction of some form of assisted dying should be reviewed after an agreed limited time period. It is an idea that deserves serious consideration. more

The Euthanasia Drumbeat Gets Louder

Here’s a piece I wrote over at American Thinker yesterday.

The Euthanasia Drumbeat Gets Louder

Across the world, the inexorable push for accepting the new culture of death continues unabated.

It's not a pretty picture, because whichever way you turn, there is pressure for assisted suicide and euthanasia to become an acceptable and even hallowed part of the social fabric.

While the roots of assisted suicide and euthanasia are hardly of recent vintage, the contemporary ground zero in our lifetimes is the Netherlands. more

Hospice Fights Pediatric Nurse Whistleblower

I’m not quite sure what I think of this report of a pediatric hospice nurse accused of (and denying) overprescribing Nembutal for dying children, especially seeing that she was the whistleblower who noticed adult doses of the drug being prescribed for her young patients. It does, however, highlight the fine line between making someone comfortable while dying and actually killing them.

Fired pediatric hospice nurse fights to clear her name

. . . For 20 years, she was one of a handful of pediatric hospice nurses in the country -- caregivers who can withstand the torment of watching young lives fade. She was the only such nurse in Montgomery County. On call virtually every day, she slept with the phone beside her bed. Once, when her own daughter was sick, she hired a home health aide so she could care for someone else's sick child. "I didn't feel like a great mother, but I felt what I was doing was so important," Lark, now 52, said wistfully. "It was a calling."

On April 14, 2007, Lark was abruptly fired from Montgomery Hospice in Rockville. In a termination memo, her supervisors accused her, in essence, of being a bad nurse. Her skills were "frequently outside the acceptable and safe standards of nursing practice." She was asked for her keys and badge. Her computer was taken, and 14 minutes later, Lark was standing in the parking lot, staring with an uncomprehending gaze. more

Here’s a fine example of the popular attitude toward assisted suicide – the horror story, and then the “brave” declaration of favoring assisted suicide. It’s this popular perception that is the most effective pro-deather propaganda.

I weep to see mum like this . . . if I ever get dementia, I’ll go to Dignitas

SINGER turned reality TV star David Van Day cradles his mother's hand and speaks softly to be sure she is sleeping.

"Mum... Mum... " Penny, 83, continues to breathe deeply.

The frontman of Eighties pop band Dollar and former contestant on hit show I'm A Celebrity then makes a shocking statement.

Looking at his sleeping mother, he reveals he would take his own life if he was ever diagnosed with her condition.

Referring to the assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland, David confesses: "If this happens to me and I'm diagnosed with dementia, I'll head straight to Dignitas." more

A Good Report On The UK Status Of Assisted Suicide

Here’s a good piece from the UK that lays out the current state of the pro-death influence.

Debating death The fight for clearer rules conceals a drive for legalisation

THE argument over the ethics of assisting the terminally ill to die is sharpening, as two recent cases concentrate minds. On June 25th Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, said that Michael Irwin and Alan Cutkelvin Rees would not be prosecuted for helping Raymond Cutkelvin, who had pancreatic cancer, die at a Swiss clinic in 2007. Prosecuting would not be in the public interest, he held: Mr Rees was motivated by compassion; Mr Irwin, a former doctor, was an elderly man; and neither had profited from the death.

In another, very different, case, the General Medical Council struck Howard Martin off the medical register on June 18th. Mr Martin admitted to hastening the death of a number of patients and said that he had not always sought consent from sufferers or their families before doing so. In 2005 he was acquitted of murdering three patients through overdoses of morphine. The police may reopen that investigation. more

UK Prof Has It Right About The Slippery Slope

This is spot-on. The pro-deathers won’t like it.

Legal assisted suicide creates 'slippery slope' to doctors killing without consent, expert claims

Prof David Jones said that if society agrees that it is in some people’s interests for them to end their own lives, it is difficult to resist the logical conclusion that others should be helped to die even if they have not made such a request.

He claimed this situation already exists in the Netherlands, where voluntary euthanasia is legal but where about 500 patients are also killed a year by their doctors without requesting to die.

Prof Jones, director of the centre for bioethics at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, said: “My view is that it will lead from people who have asked to die, to people who cannot ask.” more

Pro-Deather Spin At Its Finest

See, this is how the pro-death spin seeps into the public consciousness. Reading this, you’d think that the PBS special on Craig Ewert committing assisted sucide at Swiss clinic Dignitas was a beautiful thing. I’ve seen the documentary several times, and it’s creepily devoid of emotion. Watch the documentary of you get the chance and tell me that if that was your loved one, that you’d behave so coldly as they decided to kill themselves. Chilling.

‘Dignity’ law could use fix

Last week’s story about a Portland psychiatrist may revive the debate on assisted suicide in Oregon. If so, it might lead to improvements in the law, which now requires people to do the act without anyone helping them. . . .
We can learn far more from a documentary that appeared last week on public television’s Frontline program. It told the story of an American in his 60s who had been teaching computer science in England and got Lou Gehrig’s disease after retiring. By the time he was filmed, he could barely move and needed oxygen from a tank. He could do nothing on his own. His wife helped with everything. But he could still speak. And he explained, eloquently, why he had chosen to end his life before he lost the ability to swallow. more