Month: January 2017

Urgent: Will Congress Stop the Washington D.C. Assisted Suicide Law in Time? Write Now!

nancyvalko assisted suicide, Compassion & Choices, law, medical ethics, Uncategorized

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 taken January 12, 2017 by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) who introduced introducing a resolution in the Senate that opposes D.C.’s  “Death With Dignity Act”.

A companion resolution was introduced in the House by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) also said that he would push to block the law.

COMPASSION AND CHOICES HAS ALREADY STARTED A LETTER WRITING CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE ASSISTED SUICIDE IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

In a message to assisted suicide supporters, Compassion and Choices claims that “more than 2400 supporters” have “sent more than 7,000 messages to members of Congress”.  The organization also emphasizes “the importance of including your personal testimony” as “often the most effective way to change the minds of lawmakers”.

HOW TO CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSMAN OR CONGRESSWOMAN TO OPPOSE  ASSISTED SUICIDE IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

The National Right to Life Committee has a website link   to “Nullify District of Columbia Assisted Suicide Law” to contact your Senators and a separate link to contact your House representative(s). Enter your zip code in the box provided and you will be taken to a list of your congresspersons and a form you fill out to send an email to those representatives or senators with your comments.

HOW TO WRITE COMMENTS

Keep your comments respectful  and address the points that most move you. If you have a personal story about why you are against assisted suicide, write it as clearly and concisely as possible.

PROBLEMS WITH THE ASSISTED SUICIDE BILL

While many legislators (as well as the public) are persuaded by the “safeguards” to support assisted suicide laws, the Washington D.C. bill has many of the same problems with “safeguards” that other assisted suicide bills have. (For example, see my blogs “The slippery Slope-Tactics in the Assisted Suicide Movement” and “Pain and ‘Choice’“.)

In the D.C. assisted suicide law, such problems include:

1.The extraordinary immunity protections against civil, criminal liability or professional  disciplinary actions for doctors who participate in “good faith compliance” with the law.

2. Protection from life or annuity insurance problems due to suicide (“Neither may a qualified patient’s at of ingesting a covered medication have an effect upon a life, health, accident, insurance, or annuity policy”)

3. Minimal reporting requirements and secrecy in public records (“The Department will generate and make available to the public an annual statistical record of information collected”) Emphasis added.

4. Require mental health evaluation only for the purpose of determining if the person is mentally capable to make the decision to end his or her life. (“‘Counseling’ means one or more consultations as necessary between a state licensed psychiatrist or psychologist  and a patient for the purpose of determining that the patient is capable and not suffering from a psychiatric or psychological disorder or depression causing impaired judgment.”)

CONCLUSION

There are many reasons to oppose legalizing assisted suicide including risk for elder abuse, discrimination against people with disabilities and/or terminal or chronic conditions, the destruction of the most basic rule of medical ethics to not kill patients or help them kill themselves, suicide contagion, etc.

Assisted suicide, legalized and approved by society, is a manifestation of despair and abandonment-not empowerment. We cannot afford to be bystanders while others like Compassion and Choices continue to demand that we all accept legalized assisted suicide as a constitutional and civil right.

Could St. Louis Become a Sanctuary City for Abortion?

nancyvalko abortion, law, Planned Parenthood

The St. Louis Planned Parenthood became the last abortion clinic in Missouri in November, 2015 after an abortionist lost her “refer and follow” hospital admitting privileges in Columbia, Mo.

Now two St. Louis aldermen in partnership with NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri started an effort  in December 2016 to “make the city a sanctuary for reproductive rights”, i.e. abortion, by adding “reproductive health decisions” to the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.

Their new bill, BB 203, adds “reproductive health decisions”, defined as “any decision related to the use or intended use of a particular drug, device, or medical service, including the use or intended use of contraception or fertility control or the planned or intended initiation or termination of a pregnancy” to the already protected categories of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin or ancestry, or legal source of income.

Penalties under the current Civil Rights Enforcement Agency ordinance include up to $500 in fines and up to 90 days in jail but already a veteran pro-life activist was arrested on New Year’s Eve morning at the clinic and charged with alleged “domestic terrorism”.

In addition, as Samuel Lee of Campaign Life Missouri points out about BB 203: “There are no exemptions for churches, religious organization or for any person with a conscientious objection.”

Furthermore, he lists some possible acts that could be considered unlawful “discrimination” if BB 203 becomes law:

  • A Catholic hospital refusing to lease medical office space to a doctor who wants to perform abortions.
  • A doctors’ medical group rejecting as an employee, a physician who wants to prescribe abortion pills to his or her patients.
  • A property owner declining to lease office space to the CEO of Planned Parenthood.
  • The Archdiocese of St. Louis or Catholic Charities (at least as applied to their City of St. Louis employees), failing to include in their employees’ health benefit plans, coverage for abortion (at any time for any reason throughout pregnancy), contraception, sterilization or artificial reproduction.
  • A pastor in a pro-life church demoting or reassigning the youth minister because he encouraged and paid for his girlfriend’s abortion, because that is an “adverse employment action” (as defined in the bill) against the employee.
  • A maternity home, pregnancy resource center, Catholic Charities agency, etc., firing a counselor or social worker who referred a client for an abortion.
  • A mom or dad to denying parental consent for their minor daughter to get an abortion, because the parent would be “interfer[ing] with any person in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his having exercised or enjoyed, rights granted and protected by this ordinance.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, Planned Parenthood’s new efforts to pass such an ordinance come after much bad publicity for the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic, including multiple safety violations discovered by Operation Rescue and 60 ambulance responses to the Planned Parenthood clinic since 2009 and observed by pro-life activists at the clinic.

.Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis is also speaking out against BB 203 and states that  “the Archdiocese of St. Louis cannot and will not comply with any ordinance like Board Bill 203 that attempts to force the Church and others to become unwilling participants in the abortion business. There is no room for compromise on such a matter.”

Instead, Archbishop Carlson proposes that “St. Louis should be a sanctuary for life and compassion, especially compassion for mothers and their developing children.”

We must continue to challenge Planned Parenthood’s desperate efforts to shield its abortion business whenever and wherever such efforts occur.

Rest in Peace, Nat Henthoff

nancyvalko futility, medical ethics

The famous writer and intellectual Nat Henthoff died January 7, 2017 at the age of 91.

Wesley Smith wrote a wonderful tribute to this self-described “Jewish, atheist, civil libertarian, left-wing pro-lifer” in an article titled “Nat Henthoff, Memory Eternal”  for the National Review.

I knew Nat for many years. He was a wonderful man with a great sense of humor and a great intellectual with expertise in many areas including journalism, jazz and law. He was also proud of being a total Luddite and insisted that I send him all my articles by snail mail instead of email-which drove me crazy!

I was honored when he quoted me in his 2003 article “The Culture of Death” in the Village Voice but I was embarrassed when he sent a photographer from the newspaper to take my picture for the article.

I now treasure that article.

Rest in peace, Nat. We miss you  and we will never forget you!

The Slippery Slope-Tactics in the Assisted Suicide Movement

nancyvalko assisted suicide, brain injury, Compassion & Choices, euthanasia, food and water, medical ethics

I first saw this tactic  in the mid-1980s when Missouri was considering a “living will” law to allow a person to refuse “death prolonging procedures” if a person became terminally ill and unable to speak for himself or herself.  Some of us warned about a broader agenda, citing court cases involving feeding tubes and seriously brain-injured but non-terminally ill patients like Paul Brophy and Claire Conroy in New Jersey and Massachusetts . In  response, “right to die” activists (as they were known then) added the ”safeguard” of not allowing the withholding of food and water to the Missouri law  and the bill was passed.

Not surprisingly, Missouri soon faced the Nancy Cruzan case  involving the withdrawal of a feeding tube from a non-terminally ill young woman in a so-called “persistent vegetative state”.  Soon after that,  a Missouri Designated Health Care Decision Maker Act was passed that would allow a person to designate someone to make health care decisions (or a relative if there is no document) including withholding or withdrawing of feeding tubes when the person was incapacitated whether or not they were terminally ill or even in a so-called “vegetative state”.

Now, over 30 years later, we have legalized physician-assisted suicide in several states and the District of Columbia and the former “right to die” groups are now known as Compassion and Choices.

TODAY’S SLIPPERY SLOPE TACTICS

In a December 2016 commentary article titled “End of Life Liberty in DC” for a publication supported by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, lawyer and long-time assisted suicide activist Kathryn L. Tucker surprisingly criticizes the new assisted suicide law quietly signed into law by the mayor of Washington, DC. this month.

While most people might believe that passage of yet another assisted suicide law would be cause for celebration for assisted suicide activists, Ms. Tucker is unhappy with the so-called “safeguards” in the DC law-just as “right to die” activists were with Missouri’s “living will” law.

Ms. Tucker now complains about the “many burdens and restrictions imposed” by these “safeguards” which, ironically, are added by assisted suicide activists themselves when they  “routinely face arguments of insufficient ‘safeguards’”.  Ms. Tucker lists some of these so-called “burdens and restrictions”:

  • Patients electing AID (aid in dying, the activists preferred term for physician-assisted suicide) must make at least three requests, two oral and one written.
  • The requests must be witnessed.
  • A second opinion confirming diagnosis and prognosis is required.
  • A mental health specialist must be consulted if the attending or consulting physician has concerns regarding the patient’s ability to make an informed decision.
  • A minimum fifteen-day waiting period must elapse between the two oral requests.
  • Physicians must collect and report a vast amount of demographic data on who chooses AID and why.

Ms. Tucker claims these so-called burdens and restrictions “impose heavy governmental intrusion into the practice of medicine, which is concerning because it creates barriers to patient access and to physician participation.” (Emphasis added)

Instead, Ms. Tucker proposes another, more expansive statute without the usual so-called “safeguards” that would provide:

a clear safe harbor (i.e. immunity) for physicians to practice aid in dying in conformity with standard of care. This reflected a positive step in the direction of normalizing AID within the practice of medicine. Medicine is not routinely governed by statute but, rather, by the type of care that a competent health care professional would render in similar circumstances —referred to as standard of care or best practice. (Emphasis added)

In other words, Ms. Tucker is proposing a policy that makes assisted suicide simply normal medical care with special protections against criminal, civil or disciplinary actions for doctors who participate even though such immunity is not given for other medical practices.

CONCLUSION

Ms. Tucker and other are deadly serious about this. When Vermont passed its assisted suicide law in 2013, the law contained a “sunset” provision that would end “nearly all regulation” after the first three years. Fortunately, this was repealed in 2015.

However, assisted suicide activists will not give up on this as Compassion and Choices makes clear:

We firmly believe — and experience demonstrates — that working within healthcare systems to normalize medical aid in dying will ensure fewer people suffer at the end of their life. (Emphasis added)

As Ms. Tucker demonstrates, assisted suicide advocates will promise anything to get assisted suicide laws passed but it appears that they will never be satisfied until assisted suicide becomes a private and unfettered practice using well-funded groups like Compassion and Choices as the potentially taxpayer-funded “experts” in charge of policies, referrals, training and education.