With over $22 million in 2015 net assets,  a 4 star rating from Charity Navigator, enthusiastic media coverage and a new  “Federal Policy Agenda for 2016 and Beyond” , Compassion and Choices increasingly appears to be following in the 4 star, politically and media supported, $1.3 billion dollar revenue ($528 million in government taxpayer funding) steps of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

While Compassion and Choices claims that it just “works to improve care and expand choice at the end of life”, it also admits that “We employ  educational training programs, media outreach and online and print publications to change healthcare practice, inform policy-makers, influence public opinion and empower individuals.” (Emphasis added)

THE PALLIATIVE AND HOSPICE CONNECTION

Compassion and Choices has worked for decades not only to legalize physician-assisted suicide in every state but also to normalize and integrate physician-assisted suicide into medical practice and reaches out to established medical groups like the American Academy of Palliative and Hospice Medicine (AAPHM).

Currently, Oregon reports that 92.2% of its physician-assisted suicides were enrolled in hospice care and in Washington state,  93% of its assisted suicides “were assisted by an EOLWA (End of Life Washington) volunteers”. 

Compassion and Choices also supports two other “legal” options for assisted suicide in states that haven’t passed physician-assisted suicide laws. One is “voluntary stopping of eating and drinking (VSED)” and the other is “palliative sedation-Sometimes called terminal sedation”. Significantly, the recommendations include the admission that “VSED includes pain and symptom management” and “Palliative sedation must be medically managed by a healthcare provider”. Thus the need to influence and train hospice and palliative care providers.

No wonder Compassion and Choices lists as one of its accomplishments that it:

Pioneered the medical model of aid in dying that helps ensure that doctors can ethically practice aid in dying in an open, legitimate and accessible way, and integrates the option into patients’ end-of-life care. The culmination of that work was the publication of clinical criteria in the Journal of Palliative Medicine in December 2015. (Emphasis added)

The first line of this article “Clinical Criteria for Physician Aid in Dying” (their preferred name for physician-assisted suicide) is:

“More than 20 years ago, even before voters in Oregon had enacted the first aid in dying (AID) statute in the United States, Timothy Quill and colleagues proposed clinical criteria AID.”  (Emphasis added)

Timothy Quill, MD was the 2012 president and recipient of the Visionary award  of the American Academy of Palliative and Hospice Medicine. Dr. Quill also was the respondent in the 1997 US Supreme Court case Vacco v Quill arguing for physician-assisted suicide as a constitutional right. He lost unanimously then.

Now, Compassion & Choices’ website has a video presentation based on this article  titled  “Understand the Clinical Practice of Aid in Dying”  for doctors and other clinicians. The presentation even offers continuing medical education credits.

This would not be possible if the AAPHM had not changed its position on assisted suicide from opposition to “studied neutrality”, a position that the American Medical Association itself is now considering.

WHERE THE MONEY AND POWER IS

Compassion and Choices now has its “Federal Policy Agenda / 2016 & Beyond”.

The priorities on its agenda include:

“Establish federal payment for palliative care consultations provided by trained palliative care professionals who will advocate for and support the values and choices of the patient….”  (Emphasis added)

Also included are “Professional Education and Development” training programs for doctors and other providers “in discussing terminal prognoses and death” and  “Policies and Payment Systems” to change medical policies and payments to a “a value-based healthcare payment system” that will “(e)ncourage Congress to direct CMS (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) and other federal agencies” to withhold   “appropriations or other funds”  for treatment that was “provided but (deemed) unwanted”.

This last provision reinforces the fear many healthcare providers already have that, if in doubt, it is safer not to treat a person rather than treat him or her in hope of a good result because of potential lawsuits or reimbursement problems.

Also a priority is “Public Education and Engagement”.  Compassion and Choices bemoans that one survey showed “22 percent of those aged 75 and older had neither written down nor talked to someone about their treatment preferences at the end of life.”

So naturally Compassion and Choices recommended strengthening the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ proposal to “reimburse doctors for communicating with patients about whether and how they would want to be kept alive if they become too sick to speak for themselves.”  This of course involves “living wills” and other advance directives that give people a list of some medical treatments or care to automatically refuse by a check mark. Unfortunately but tellingly, these directives include no explanation of the treatments themselves or their risks and benefits which is crucial for the informed consent or refusal required if the person was making the decision while fully conscious.

CONCLUSION

Compassion and Choices has been very involved in many legal cases about assisted suicide including the 1997 US Supreme Court’s Vacco v Quill decision finding no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. Undeterred, the organization continues to push for legalization of assisted suicide by fighting state by state while hoping for a possible future US Supreme Court decision that, like Canada’s in 2015, would legalize medically assisted suicide throughout the country.

In the meantime, if Compassion and Choices federal policy agenda is successful, they stand to benefit from a potential windfall of government taxpayer funding to provide their currently  “free consultation, planning resources, referrals and guidance”

As an article by Ashton Ellis has astutely observed ,

“The effort by pro-euthanasia group Compassion & Choices to use Brittany Maynard’s story to push physician-assisted suicide is part of a larger strategy. When talking about end-of-life issues, a strategically crafted frame points to only one logical conclusion: I’d rather be dead.”