Month: February 2017

My Submission to the AMA Opposing Neutrality on Physician-Assisted Suicide

nancyvalko Compassion & Choices, medical ethics, nursing, suicide

Amid conflicting reports about whether or not the American Medical Association was going to consider a position of neutrality on physician assisted suicide, I was informed that the AMA’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs was collecting data, position statements, etc. for consideration of assisted suicide and other topics before the June AMA Annual meeting. The deadline for submissions was February 15.

The following is my submission titled “Neutrality on physician assisted suicide also hurts nurses”

Dear AMA,

I have been a registered nurse since 1969. After working in critical care, hospice, home health, oncology, dialysis and other specialties for 45 years, I am currently working as a legal nurse consultant and volunteer as well as spokesperson for the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses. Over the years, I have cared for many suicidal people as well as people who attempt suicide.

I have served on medical and nursing ethics committees, served on disability and nursing boards. I have written and spoken on medical ethics-especially end of life issues-since 1984.

The dangers of the legalization of physician-assisted suicide are especially acute for us nurses. Unlike doctors, we nurses cannot refuse to care for a patient  in a situation like assisted suicide unless another willing nurse can be found which can be impossible. If we do refuse, that is considered abandonment and cause for discipline and even termination. And we are necessarily involved when the assisted suicide act occurs in home health, hospice or health care facility even though the doctor is not required to be there.

marievalko

Marievalko Picture of Marie Valko 1979-2009

As a nurse and the mother of a suicide victim (see picture above), I am alarmed by reports that the AMA is considering a position of neutrality on physician-assisted suicide. I beg you to uphold the legal and ethical standard that medical professionals must not kill their patients or help them kill themselves. Suicide is a tragedy to be prevented if possible, not a civil right.

MY DAUGHTER KILLED HERSELF USING AN ASSISTED SUICIDE TECHNIQUE

In 2009, I lost a beautiful, physically well 30-year-old daughter, Marie, to suicide after a 16-year battle with substance abuse and other issues. Her suicide was like an atom bomb dropped on our family, friends and even her therapists.

Despite all of our efforts to save her, my Marie told me that she learned how to kill herself from visiting suicide/assisted suicide websites and reading Derek Humphry’s book Final Exit. The medical examiner called Marie’s suicide technique “textbook final exit” but her death was neither dignified nor peaceful.

Marie was not mere collateral damage in the controversy over physician-assisted suicide. She was a victim of the physician-assisted suicide movement, seduced by the rhetoric of a painless exit from what she believed was a hopeless life of suffering.

SUICIDE CONTAGION

Adding to our family’s pain, at least two people close to Marie became suicidal not long after her suicide. Luckily, these two young people received help and were saved, but suicide contagion, better known as “copycat suicide”, is a well-documented phenomenon. Often media coverage or publicity around one death encourages other vulnerable people to commit suicide in the same way.

STUDY SHOWS LEGALIZING PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE IS ASSOCIATED WITH AN INCREASE RATE OF TOTAL SUICIDES

A 2015 article in the Southern Medical Journal titled “How Does Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide Affect Rates of Suicide?” came to these conclusions:

“Legalizing PAS has been associated with an increased rate of total suicides relative to other states and no decrease in nonassisted suicides. This suggests either that PAS does not inhibit (nor acts as an alternative to) nonassisted suicide, or that it acts in this way in some individuals but is associated with an increased inclination to suicide in other individuals.”

THE HEALTH AND ECONOMIC COSTS OF SUICIDE

My Marie was one of the almost 37,000 reported US suicides in 2009. In contrast, only about 800 assisted-suicide deaths have been reported in the past 16 years in Oregon, the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suicide was the 10th leading cause of death for Americans in 2012, with “More than 1 million people reported making a suicide attempt in the past year” and “More than 2 million adults reported thinking about suicide in the past year.” The CDC estimates that suicide “costs society approximately $34.6 billion a year in combined medical and work loss costs”, not to mention the emotional toll on families.

Obviously our real health-care crisis here is a staggering and increasing rate of suicides, not the lack of enough assisted suicides.

BRITTANY MAYNARD

There was a media frenzy in October 2014 when Brittany Maynard, a young newlywed woman with a brain tumor, announced plans to commit physician-assisted suicide on November 1 and raise money to have physician-assisted suicide legalized in all US states. There was an immediate and unprecedented media frenzy surrounding Ms. Maynard’s tragic story that routinely portrayed her pending assisted suicide as “heroic” and even counting down the days to her suicide. Personally, I thought this looked like a crowd on the street shouting for a suicidal person on a window ledge to jump.

In the end, Brittany hesitated for a day before she went through with her pledge to take the lethal overdose.

Now, assisted suicide supporters even deny that physician-assisted suicide is suicide, insisting that media stories use euphemisms like “aid-in-dying” and “death with dignity” in cases like Ms. Maynard’s to make assisted suicide more palatable to the public. However, this defies common sense when the definition of suicide is the intentional taking of one’s own life.

PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE AND MEDICAL DISCRIMINATION

I have been a registered nurse for 47 years, working in intensive care, oncology, hospice and home health among other specialties. Personally and professionally, I have cared for many people who attempt or consider killing themselves.

Some of these people were old, chronically ill or had disabilities. Some were young and physically healthy. A few were terminally ill. I cared for all of them to the best of my ability without discrimination as to their condition, age, socioeconomic status, race or gender. I will do anything to help my patients — except kill them or help them kill themselves.

Suicide prevention and treatment works, and the standards must not be changed just because some people insist their desire for physician-assisted suicide is rational and even a civil right.

Are Mail Order Abortions Coming?

nancyvalko abortion, law, Planned Parenthood

Abortion clinics have been closing at a record pace. Since 2011, at least 162 abortion clinic have shut or stopped offering the procedure while just 21 have opened. Five states now have just one abortion clinic still open.

New pro-life laws regulating safety and standards are part of the reason but as feminist Madeleine Schwartz writes, even in liberal states “the combination of the economic difficulties of operating a clinic, a generally hostile atmosphere and declining demand means that many clinics are shutting down.”

It should be no surprise that telemedicine medical abortion has also become appealing to Planned Parenthood because it reduces the cost burden of the clinics.

Not to mention that abortion has also become increasingly concentrated among the poor with 49% of aborted women patients having a family income below the federal poverty level.

MEDICAL ABORTION AND TELEMEDICINE

Although abortion was legalized in 1973, it wasn’t until 2000 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first oral abortion drug mifepristone (also known as RU-486) for medical abortions within 7 weeks of pregnancy (In March 2016, the FDA changed its guideline to allow medical abortion up to 10 weeks into pregnancy.)

Back in 2000, the “early abortion” procedure involved 3 clinic visits. The first session was with a doctor and taking the mifepristone dose to stop the progesterone necessary to establish and maintain the attachment of the unborn baby and placenta to the womb.  Two days later and if still pregnant, the expectant mother had to return to the clinic for the dose of misoprostol to cause expulsion of the preborn baby. Two weeks after the first clinic visit, the mother must return to the clinic to confirm that the pregnancy was ended.

In 2008, a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Iowa initiated the first formal telemedicine abortion program in the U.S. for abortion clinics not regularly staffed by a physician. In this situation, a physician in another location reviews prior labs and imaging to estimate the length of pregnancy and potential contraindications before speaking by a webcam to the pregnant woman.

The doctor is never physically present. Instead, he consults with the pregnant woman via the webcam about her medical history and tests, explains the procedure and then remotely activates a drawer that opens to dispense the abortion pills.

Now rates of medical abortions rival surgical abortions in the U.S.

However by citing safety concerns, 37 states currently require clinicians who perform medication abortions to be licensed physicians and 19 states require that the clinician providing a medication abortion be physically present during the procedure, thereby prohibiting the use of telemedicine to prescribe medication for abortion remotely.

NOW MEDICAL ABORTIONS BY MAIL?

A new study has been started in 4 states (Hawaii, New York, Oregon and Washington) to allow women to terminate a pregnancy by telemedicine and mail-order drugs.

Although the telemedicine medical abortions by email are touted as especially a boon for women in rural areas without a close abortion clinic, the process does not allow women to avoid the doctor’s office entirely. Using a video hookup on a home computer, a woman first consults a physician (or other clinician such as a nurse practitioner) at one of three participating abortion clinics who evaluates her medical history, explains how to take the abortion pills and what to expect. The woman then must get medical tests including ultrasound and blood work at a medical facility.

The study is being conducted by Gynuity Health Projects in the hope that good results will encourage the FDA to stop restrictions on mifepristone in pharmacies.

IS MEDICAL ABORTION EVEN PHYSICALLY SAFE?

The list of contraindications for medical abortion include ectopic pregnancy, chronic adrenal failure, chronic corticosteroid use and blood clotting problems. If tests do not reveal such problems or if a pregnant woman does not know or tell the doctor about certain conditions, the results could be deadly.

Complications of medical abortions include infection, heavy or prolonged bleeding in an estimated 1% of women and in an estimated 2% to 5% of medical abortions, the unborn baby is not completely expelled from the womb. When the unborn baby is not completely expelled, a surgical abortion is done to prevent infection or other problems

In December 2014, the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) released an extensive study on Medicaid abortions in California. While its press release was titled “Major Complication rate after Abortion is Extremely Low”, Stanford University Ph.D. Michael New and his team found something quite different when they analyzed the data. They found that the study confirmed the finding that telemedicine abortions have “four times more risk of complications”.

A NURSE’S PERSPECTIVE

Although Planned Parenthood calls medical abortion “similar to a miscarriage”, it’s not.

Years ago, I had a miscarriage at 10 weeks with complications. I had a doctor who knew my medical history before he gently told me that my baby had died in my womb. When I had complications at home during my miscarriage, he met me in the emergency room and took care of the problem. It was my doctor who reassured me when I was hospitalized overnight. That kind of physical and emotional support is not possible with a medical abortion from a clinic.

Now imagine a young woman afraid to tell anyone she is pregnant and who visits an abortion clinic to get the abortion pills. Will anyone be with her or even know when she goes home and experiences what Planned Parenthood says is “kind of like having a really heavy, crampy period” with large clots and that “(a)ny chills, fevers, or nausea you have should go away pretty quickly”? Will she recognize the signs of a complication? Will anyone follow up if she doesn’t return to the clinic to be checked after the abortion?

There is a big difference between medical abortion and miscarriage physically, emotionally and spiritually because abortion is NOT health care.

My Trip to Georgetown University: The Inspiration of a New Generation

nancyvalko abortion, assisted suicide, brain injury, conscience rights, disability, end-of-life, euthanasia, law, suicide

I was honored to be asked to give a talk at the annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference On Life at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. on January 28, 2017, the day after the annual March for Life. To be honest, I believe that I received more from the conference and students than I could ever contribute!

The title of my talk was “Killing or Caring? A Nurse’s Professional and Personal Journey”. I spoke about the progression of the Culture of Death through 4 professional and personal stories from abortion through assisted suicide. My stories included my 1982 fight to save the life of my newborn daughter with Down Syndrome and a severe heart defect against some lethal medical discrimination based on her disability. The second story was about how a young man in a car accident in the early 1970s “miraculously” recovered when we nurses refused to give up after the doctor initially predicted that the young man would at best be a so-called “vegetable” if he lived. The third story was about my daughter who died by suicide in 2009 at the age of 30 using an assisted suicide technique she read about and the tragedy of suicide contagion when assisted suicide is normalized and even glamorized. My last story was how I was almost fired from my ICU unit when I refused to participate in a withdrawal of treatment/terminal sedation euthanasia.

I was so moved by the enthusiastic response of the students to the message that the Culture of Death cannot be ignored or tolerated because evil will always expand until we stop it by demanding the recognition that every life is valuable and worthy of protection. I also loved getting a chance to talk to so many of the students after the talk. They inspired me!

Even on my trips to and from Georgetown University, I met two other inspiring young people. One was a lovely young African-American woman seated next to me on the flight to Washington, D.C. She told me about her career as a police officer patrolling the toughest area in Oakland, California. She also spoke about her passion to help the community and how she embraced the challenges of her choice. Who could not be inspired by that?

The Uber driver who drove me to the airport after my talk was similarly inspiring. It turned out that he was a young nurse who emigrated here from Ethiopia last year and was now studying for his national nursing exam to practice in the U.S. His story was fascinating and when he learned I was a veteran nurse, we had a wonderful discussion about nursing as a great career.

CONCLUSION

We sometimes hear the pessimistic opinion that our next generation is self-absorbed and only interested in money and the next cultural fad.

Based on my experiences in Georgetown, I think that our next generation may prove to be one of the best!

Emergency re-post: Write to Your Legislators in Congress Now!

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

On January 21, I wrote the following post (see below) to encourage all assisted suicide opponents to contact their own state’s legislators with instructions on how to find your state’s legislators and how to contact them.

There are only 30 legislative days (not calendar days but rather official working days for Congress which are impossible to predict) to contact your own state’s legislators to support a house and senate resolution bill disapproving the D.C. assisted suicide law before it automatically takes effect. The bills are S.J.Res. 4 for the Senate and H.J.Res.27 for the House and both are titled “Nullify District of Columbia Assisted Suicide Law”. You can also find and contact your legislators at those links.

It does not matter if your state has already approved assisted suicide or not. This is a way to let your legislator know you oppose it and this can educate him or her on what a constituent actually wants.

If you can, tell your story about why you oppose legalizing assisted suicide. Speak from your heart. It could be as simple as “I am a senior citizen and I fear giving doctors the right to kill”. Shorter messages are actually more likely to be read.

Thank you.

Nancy Valko RN ALNC

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

January 21, 2017 nancyvalko assisted suicide, Compassion & Choices, law, medical ethics,

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.

  1. 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”)
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

 

 

Dr. Anne Bannon, Hero For Life

nancyvalko abortion, assisted suicide, end-of-life, family

anne-reading

Dr. Anne Bannon “reading” her old pro-life insert. June 2016.

My friend and hero, Dr. Anne Bannon, died at the age of 89 on January 30, 2017.

Dr. Anne Bannon became a pediatrician decades ago at a time when women were usually discouraged from entering the almost exclusively men’s profession of medicine. But feisty and stubborn, Dr. Anne persevered to become a great doctor and the Chief of Pediatrics at City Hospital in St. Louis.

When the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion came down, Dr. Anne was surprised and horrified. She went on to found Doctors for Life here in St. Louis.

One of her biggest projects was yearly producing and paying for a multi-page insert into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (see picture), a newspaper that strongly supports legalized abortion and now assisted suicide.

Dr. Anne’s insert was full of facts but perhaps most importantly, it also listed the names of doctors against abortion. Every year, she would personally call every doctor she could and ask them if they opposed abortion and would agree to be listed in the insert. Despite the effort involved, Anne refused any help in contacting these doctors.

Every year, the list of doctors was long and it took courage for these doctors to agree to be listed. My own obstetrician-gynecologist told me that he received calls from other doctors who told him that they would never refer another patient to him if he continued to be listed in the insert. My doctor refused to be intimidated and he told me that publicly standing up for life was more important than possibly hurting his practice. In the end, his practice wound up even stronger.

DR. ANNE AND I

I was introduced to Dr. Anne in 1982 when my daughter Karen was born with Down Syndrome and a severe heart defect. I told her about several doctors who tried to undermine our decision to have our daughter medically treated exactly the same as any other child with a heart condition.

Of course, Dr. Anne was supportive and in 1983, even introduced me to Dr. C. Everett Koop, then Surgeon General under President Ronald Reagan, so that I could tell him my story and advocate for a national hotline that parents of newborns with any disability  could call to find resources to help their children.

Dr. Anne recognized that legalized abortion was leading to increasing acceptance of deliberate death decisions for born people, especially the disabled. Never married with no family nearby, she asked me to be her durable power of attorney for health care because she wanted truly ethical health care in case she became unable to speak for herself.

Several years ago, Dr. Anne developed dementia, probably Alzheimer’s, and was in a nursing home on Medicaid. By the time she died, she was in the late stages and unable to walk or even speak clearly  most of the time. But she was excited and delighted when we, her friends, visited her in the nursing home even when she could not remember our names. We were her St. Louis family and we loved her.

Dr. Anne fractured her hip last Saturday night and needed surgery. She did well in surgery but suddenly became critically ill at the end of the surgery . But, to the doctors’ surprise and just when they were ready to give up, Anne suddenly got better. She was taken to intensive care on a ventilator and unconscious but stable. Anne’s famous fighting Irish spirit came out one last time and we were proud of her.

Dr. Anne was in critical but stable condition and apparently in a coma when we called a wonderful local priest to give her the Catholic Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, previously known as Last Rites or Extreme Unction. According to one friend and the doctor attending, her face seemed to soften during the sacrament and she even blinked and put her tongue out. That in itself was amazing.

After the sacrament, her vital signs immediately started to drop and despite an increase in her medications, Dr. Anne died peacefully and in no distress a few hours later. We knew she wanted the sacrament and I believe that she hung on until she received it.

As a former hospice nurse, I have often seen this kind of hanging on by dying patients until an important matter was resolved.

So, to the end, Dr. Anne was still teaching about the value of all life.

Rest in peace, Dr. Anne Bannon!