There is a terrible proposal in Springfield being shopped around right now behind closed doors – a bill to legalize assisted suicide in Illinois. Just days before the General Assembly adjourns, certain members are trying to rush a measure through so the Governor can sign it into law. Even with their supermajority, far-left legislators know very well that if "We, the People" could actually see their bill, it would likely kill their chances to pass the bill. Hence, they are keeping the bill under wraps by secretly rounding up the votes for assisted suicide first and then unveiling the legislation for the rest of us to see right before an 11th-hour vote. This is Illinois.
Psychiatrists Call for Assisted Suicide for Patients with Anorexia Terminal illness is a difficult subject for most people to approach. No one wants to think of themselves or their loved ones suffering from a debilitating illness. Patients with these diagnoses worry about the pain and decreasing levels of independence and hope to limit the suffering they and their families may experience. However, some politicians and physicians believe that assisted suicide is a solution to end the suffering of these terminal patients. After years of debate, several states have legalized physician-assisted suicide. Now, members of the medical community would like to extend the definition of terminal illness to include several mental illnesses, including anorexia nervosa.
An April, 2019 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled “Attitudes Toward Physician-Assisted Death From Individuals Who Learn They Have an Alzheimer Disease Biomarker” found that approximately 20% of cognitively normal older adults who had elevated beta-amyloid — a biomarker that is thought to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease — said they would consider physician-assisted suicide if they experienced a cognitive decline. Not everyone with amyloid plaques goes on to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
Although no state with legalized physician-assisted suicide currently allows lethal overdoses for people with Alzheimer’s or other dementia, Emily Largent, JD, PhD, …
Posted in Sanctity of Life
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Tagged Alzheimer's, Assisted Suicide, Compassion and Choices, Death Cafes, dementia, economics, Ellen Goodman, Emily Largent, Hemlock Society, Journal of the American Medical Association, Living wills, medical ethics, nursing, The Conversation Project
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As I have written before, I was almost fired for refusing to increase a morphine drip “until he stops breathing” on a patient who continued to breathe after his ventilator was removed. The doctors mistakenly presumed he had a massive stroke and thus was irreparably brain-damaged. I was told at that time that giving and increasing the morphine even though the patient showed no discomfort was merely “comfort care” that would “prevent pain”. I knew it was euthanasia.
Posted in Uncategorized
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Tagged Assisted Suicide, Barbara Coombs Lee, Compassion & Choices, Compassion and Choices, Dame Cicely Saunders, euthanasia, law, medical ethics, palliative care, Sophie Druenne, The Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act
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While the debate continues as more states adopt paths for medically assisted deaths, family caregivers remain virtually omitted from the conversation and care. The lid of this Pandora’s Box is opening wider as Christians flounder in sharing a biblically founded position. History shows when governments draw and then move this line about the value of life, then it can cause genocide (Germany) and infanticide (abortion). Quality of life and suffering remain subjective. Death, however, is not.
Come join in a thoughtful mealtime discussion as we return to the original idea of a symposium – a philosophical banquet – and share with physicians, nurses, and other healthcare leaders on what inspires them to improve the human environment surrounding their practice.
Featuring: Rita Marker, founder and executive director to The Patients Rights Council
Panelists:
Rebecca Davis Mathias, Ph.D., Ethicist at St. Anthony Hospital in Chicago, Consulting Ethicist for the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago Service Corporation, Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at Dominican University in River Forest, and Board Member for the Integritas Institute.
Mark Grzeskowiak, MD
Sean O’Mahony, …
An article in the May, 2018 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society titled “Rational Suicide in Elderly Adults: A Clinician’s Perspective” by Meera Balasubramaniam, MD, MPH recently appeared in both medical and nursing news sources.
With the American Medical Association considering changing its’ long-standing opposition to physician-assisted suicide despite the recommendations of its’ ethics committee and the California assisted suicide law declared unconstitutional now reinstated pending appeal, assisted suicide/euthanasia groups like Compassion and Choices (the well-funded former Hemlock Society) are ramping up efforts nationwide to legalize assisted suicide.
As a nurse threatened with termination for refusing to participate in an unethical health care decision years ago, I have a special interest in conscience rights for health care professionals.
Over the past several decades, new threats to conscience rights have widened from refusing to participate in abortions to other deliberate death decisions like withdrawal of feedings from people with serious brain injuries, VSED (voluntary stopping of eating and drinking), terminal sedation and physician-assisted suicide.
Thus, I am pleased that the Trump administration recently announced the new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division in the department of Health and Human Services’ …
Oregon, the first US state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, is routinely promoted by advocates as having the model law for assisted suicide. Now the debate has come to Sweden.
Posted in Media Watch, Sanctity of Life
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Tagged Assisted Suicide, Compassion & Choices, Craig New, euthanasia, Fabian Stahle, law, media, Oregon Health Authority, Swedish National Council of Medical Ethics, Tyranny
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Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser quietly signed an assisted suicide bill into law on December 19, 2016 after a majority of the city council voted for it.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the Congress has exclusive legislative authority over the District of Columbia. Congress has just 30 legislative days to review a law of the District of Columbia once it is passed by the city government. Resolutions of disapproval must be passed by both houses and be signed by the president to block a D.C. law.
In a race against time, the first step to block the assisted suicide law was …
