ANA

Victory: “After Initial Hope, Medically Assisted Suicide Bill Won’t Move Forward in Maryland”

nancyvalko ANA, assisted suicide, conscience rights, culture, education, end-of-life, euthanasia, food and water, law, medical ethics, nursing, VSED

In 2019, I testified in Maryland against another “medically assisted suicide” bill that was expected to pass and wrote a blog about it titled “Lessons from the Victory against Assisted Suicide in Maryland”. It failed to pass by one vote.

Now, yet another attempt to pass an assisted suicide bill in Maryland failed by “one or two votes”, according to a Baltimore Sun article titled “After initial hope, medically assisted suicide bill won’t move forward in Maryland”, thanks to efforts like that of Mary Bogdan BSN, MA-C, DNP-S, ALNC who wrote an excellent expert witness testimony stating in part:

“The physician assisted suicide bill has been called many things: medical aid in dying, euthanasia, withholding of food and water, etc., etc., etc. The bottom line is this: I did not become a nurse to kill people. The American Nurses Association (ANA) says that nurses should support patient autonomy, the desire to have control over one’s life. I submit this; if we allow patients to end their lives as desired by them, we subject ourselves to unfathomable consequences.” (Emphasis added)

Note this sentence from the article in the Baltimore Sun “I think that as we slowly got closer to the vote and had more in depth discussions with their constituents, folks just expressed unreadiness to move on it at this time,” Smith said. “I’m obviously very disappointed, but you have to respect the decisions of the individual senators who were listening to their constituents and listening to their conscience.” (Sen. Will Smith is chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee and a previous sponsor of the bill)

CONCLUSION

Nurse Bogdan’s testimony ends with a powerful quote from Dr.  Harvey Max Chochinov, MD, PhD in his December 2023 recent Medpage article ” Intensive Caring: Reminding Patients They Matter— How to care for those who no longer care about themselves”:

“There is abundant evidence that patients approaching death are susceptible to feeling that they no longer matter. When patients feel life is no longer worth living, healthcare professionals must affirm their intrinsic worth to patients for all that they are, all that they were, and all that they will become in the collective memories of those they will eventually leave behind.” (Emphasis added)

Virginia is now facing SB 280, an assisted suicide bill.

Unfortunately, the assisted suicide proponents never seem to give up and we must continue to be vigilant in every state and continue to educate legislators, healthcare providers, and the general population about these dangerous assisted suicide laws.

Victory on Assisted Suicide, Conscience Rights and AMA Proposed Resolutions

nancyvalko AMA, ANA, assisted suicide, conscience rights, culture, euthanasia, law, medical ethics, nursing

“First Do No Harm-Hippocrates”

Last November, I wrote my blog “NAPN Position Paper on AMA Considering New Resolutions on Assisted Suicide”.

Now, the Life Legal Defense Foundation has announced a great victory on this as well as conscience rights.

I have personally worked with The Life Legal Defense Foundation for years and they are awesome!

Here is their statement:

VICTORY over DEATH PEDDLERS in the American Medical Association…! – LIFE LEGAL DEFENSE FOUNDATION

/ Active Euthanasia / By Life Legal / January 9, 2024:

“In 2022, Life Legal sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta to stop enforcement of SB 380, which would have prohibited physicians from opting out of the state’s assisted suicide scheme. SB 380 required doctors to provide most of the documentation needed for their patients to receive so-called “aid-in-dying” drugs – even if doctors were morally opposed to participating in assisted suicide. The law imposed draconian punishments on physicians who refused to comply, including civil and criminal penalties and professional discipline.

Life Legal, along with Alliance Defending Freedom, represented the Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA) in the lawsuit – and we won! After a hard fight, we were able to get the law enjoined (blocked). Life Legal, Alliance Defending Freedom, and the CMDA were victorious in protecting physicians’ rights of conscience – but the wins did not stop there.

Recently, the CMDA joined with members from the Catholic Medical Association (CMA) to oppose two American Medical Association resolutions supporting physician-assisted suicide. As a result of the pro-life stance taken by the CMDA and the CMA, the American Medical Association declined both resolutions. This means the AMA officially remains in opposition to assisted suicide, holding that “permitting physicians to engage in assisted suicide would ultimately cause more harm than good. Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.”

We are honored to represent pro-life physicians and we are grateful for their powerful witness in opposition to assisted suicide.” (Emphasis in original)

CONCLUSION

We nurses are also grateful for this victory and so should everyone who cares about healthcare ethics!

Progress in the War Against Conscience Rights

nancyvalko abortion, AMA, ANA, assisted suicide, brain injury, civil rights, Compassion & Choices, conscience rights, culture, education, end-of-life, euthanasia, food and water, futility, law, medical, medical ethics, nursing, Planned Parenthood, pro-life, vegetative state

As I wrote in my 2016 blog “Conscientious Objection, Conscience Rights and Workplace Discrimination” :

The tragic cases of Nancy Cruzan and Christine Busalacchi , young Missouri women who were claimed to be in a “persistent vegetative state” and starved and dehydrated to death, outraged those of us in Missouri Nurses for Life and we took action.

Besides educating people about severe brain damage, treatment, cases of recovery and the radical change in medical ethics that could lead to the legalization of euthanasia, we also fought for healthcare providers’ rights against workplace discrimination for refusing to participate in deliberate death decisions. We talked to nurses who were threatened with termination.

Although Missouri had some protections against forcing participating in abortion, there were no statutes we could find where health care providers were protected against being forced to participate in deliberate death decisions. We were also told by some legislators that our chance of success was almost nil.

Nevertheless, we persisted and after years of work and enduring legislators watering down our original proposal to include lethal overdoses and strong penalties, Missouri Revised Statutes, Section 404.872.1 was finally signed into law in 1992. It states:

Refusal to honor health care decision, discrimination prohibited, when.

404.872. No physician, nurse, or other individual who is a health care provider or an employee of a health care facility shall be discharged or otherwise discriminated against in his employment or employment application for refusing to honor a health care decision withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment if such refusal is based upon the individual’s religious beliefs, or sincerely held moral convictions.

(L. 1992 S.B. 573 & 634 § 7)

PROGRESS DURING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

In 2018, the Trump administration announced a new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division  in the department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to enforce “federal laws that protect conscience and the free exercise of religion and prohibit coercion and discrimination in health and human services”. The division specifically mentions “issues such as abortion and assisted suicide (among others) in HHS-funded or conducted programs and activities” and includes a link to file a conscience or religious freedom complaint “if you feel a health care provider or government agency coerced or discriminated against you (or someone else) unlawfully”.

Both Planned Parenthood (abortion) and Compassion and Choices (assisted suicide) loudly condemned this.

Lawsuits were quickly filed by groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Center for Reproductive Rights, delaying implementation of the Final Conscience Rule until at least late November. The first lawsuit was filed by San Francisco within hours of the announcement of the Rule.

NOW STATES ARE GETTING INVOLVED

In 2020, the Medical Conscience Rights Initiative (MCRI)  was launched by the Religious Freedom Institute, Alliance Defending Freedom and the Christ Medicus Foundation to promote legislation on the state level “to protect America’s healthcare providers from mandates to perform voluntary procedures in violation of their conscience (e.g., abortion, physician assisted suicide, gender transition surgery, etc.).”

Now five states-Arkansas, Ohio, South Carolina, Florida and now Montana– have enacted versions of this model legislation while “similar efforts are ongoing in multiple other states.”

CONCLUSION

Conscience rights are a necessity, especially since as Dr. Donna Harrison, director of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) makes the crucial point that:

 “Those who oppose the HHS Conscience Rule demonstrate their clear intention to squeeze out of the medical profession any doctor who still abides by the Hippocratic Oath, and to squelch any opposition to forcing doctors to kill human beings at the beginning and end of life.” (Emphasis added)

Disturbingly, as a 2021 paper “Teaching the Holocaust in Nursing Schools: The Perspective of the Victims and Survivors” points out: “the majority of nursing and medical schools do not include Holocaust and genocide studies in their curriculum“, unlike years ago when it was included as an essential part of medical ethics education.

The results are frightening, as I wrote in a 2019 blog “How Could This Happen? Ohio Doctor Accused of Murder in 25 Patient Overdose Deaths”. The doctor was eventually acquitted of murder after “Husel’s defense team, led by high-profile attorney Jose Baez, argued that no maximum doses of fentanyl are considered illegal under state law and that his client was trying to give comfort care to people who were dying or near death.” (Emphasis added)

 Today, both the American Medical Association and American Nurses Association champion “abortion rights” and have dropped their total opposition to medically assisted suicide.

Without conscience rights and whistleblower protections, our health care system can not only become unethical but also downright dangerous to both healthcare providers and patients.

The National Association of Pro-Life Nurses: We Care About All Lives

nancyvalko abortion, Alzheimer's, AMA, ANA, assisted suicide, Cancer, culture, dementia, disability, drug addiction, education, end-of-life, grief, law, media, medical ethics, nursing, pro-life

Recently, I was contacted by a college political science professor who is writing a paper about “pro-choice and pro-life viewpoints” and she wanted to know more about the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses.

I was delighted and we had a long conversation about what motivates pro-life people-and especially nurses.

I told her about our National Association of Pro-life Nurses and the why and how we do what we do. Our motto since the organization began in the 1970s is “Take my hand, not my life”.

The professor seemed surprised that the pro-life movement is founded on caring rather than the common misperception of politics and political power.

Instead, as I told her, the pro-life movement is about helping people in crisis situations from conception to death and educating people about upholding the excellent, life-giving ethics and laws that protect all lives from conception to natural death.

It is also not about being judgmental but rather about truly caring and offering help to desperate people in crisis situations and the people around them before-or even after- a person has chosen abortion or is considering medically assisted suicide. (see “Pro-Life and Other Resources for Help and Information to Protect Human Life”)

And this works!

Many people are surprised when they find out that even NBC News admits that:

“More than 2,500 crisis pregnancy centers operate in the country, outnumbering abortion clinics nearly 3 to 1 by some estimates. Critics, as well as supporters, have said the number of women seeking support at them has grown quickly in the 11 months since federal abortion rights were overturned, which resulted in the closing of abortion clinics in dozens of states. ” (Emphasis added)

And as pro-life nurses who care for everyone-not just in hospitals and crisis pregnancy centers, but also in prisons, at home in poor and sometimes dangerous areas, in homeless situations, etc., we are truly interested in helping instead of judging people.

Our message is “We Care” and I have yet to meet a pro-life nurse who isn’t also involved in some sort of volunteer work.

CONCLUSION

In my 50+ years as a nurse, I have worked in burn units, medical and surgical units, burn units, dialysis, intensive care, oncology (cancer), hospice and home health. I have also cared for relatives and friends with terminal illnesses, dementia, critical heart defects, cancer, disabilities, severe psychosis, suicide, drug addiction, teen pregnancy, etc. but never once was I tempted to end a life.

Just as doctors used to take the Hippocratic Oath that said ” I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor
will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.”, new nurses used to take the Nightingale Pledge that said ” I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug.”

Unfortunately, today these oaths are little used or changed to allow for formerly illegal practices and this has harmed both professions and to the detriment of healthcare and public trust.

I have also been a newspaper reporter and writer for several publications but  in 2015, I started my blog “A Nurse’s Perspective on Life, Healthcare and Ethics” to report on the many healthcare ethics controversies and I often use my personal and professional stories to show resources and how to help people in difficult circumstances.

Most of all, I have seen the power of “I Care/We Care” to help people and their families at some of the most desperate times of their lives and I am proud to be a member of the National Association of Pro-life Nurses.

Please join us and/or follow NAPN on Facebook.

Press Release: The National Association of Pro-life Nurses Condemns the American Nurses Association Decision to Drop Its Long-standing Opposition to Assisted Suicide

nancyvalko ANA, assisted suicide, Compassion & Choices, conscience rights, medical ethics, pro-life

In June 2019, the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates decisively approved reaffirming the AMA’s long-standing policy opposing physician-assisted suicide despite enormous pressure from assisted suicide supporters and groups like Compassion and Choices as well as some other professional associations to change its position to “neutrality”.

But a few weeks later, the American Nurses Association (ANA) dropped its long-standing policy opposing physician-assisted suicide. Instead its’ new “The Nurse’s Role When a Patient Requests Medical Aid in Dying (aka physician-assisted suicide)” insists that it is really about “high-quality, compassionate, holistic and patient-center care, including end-of-life care”.

As the new position states, “A nurse’s ethical response to a patient’s inquiry about medical aid in dying is not based on the intention to end life. Rather, it is a response to the patient’s quality-of-life self-assessment, whether based on loss of independence, inability to enjoy meaningful activities, loss of dignity, or unmanaged pain and suffering.” (Emphasis added)

This response includes even being present when the patient takes the lethal overdose: “If present during medical aid in dying, the nurse promotes patient dignity as well as provides for symptom relief, comfort, and emotional support to the patient and family.” (Emphasis added)

For nurses who object to assisted suicide, the position states that “Conscience-based refusals to participate exclude personal preference, prejudice, bias, convenience, or arbitrariness” and that “Nurses are obliged to provide for patient safety, to avoid patient abandonment, and to withdraw only when assured that nursing care is available to the patient” (Emphasis added)

In other words, nurses would have to abandon their vital role in preventing and treating suicide for some of their patients when the issue is assisted suicide. And a conscience-based refusal to participate depends on whether or not another nurse willing to participate is available.

Although the ANA insists that their position “is intended to reflect only the opinion of ANA as an organization regarding what it believes is an ideal and ethical response based on the Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements”, the effect is chilling for those of us who cannot or will not help our patients kill themselves even where legal.

Already, Compassion and Choices (the former Hemlock Society) is praising the ANA for “dropping opposition to ‘medical aid in dying’”, stating that “It’s no surprise that the largest national nursing association recognized the growing public demand for medical aid in dying and updated their policy to allow nurses to better support their patients at life’s end.” (Emphasis added)

But the ANA may eventually have to again update their position on assisted suicide since we are now seeing, as in a (thankfully failed) recent bill in New Mexico,  further attempts to change the definition of terminal illness to expected death in the “forseeable future”,  non-physicians such as advance practice nurses able to prescribe assisted suicide, inclusion of people with mental health disorders, approval by “telemedicine” and no state residency requirement.

Right now, less than ten percent of the nation’s nurses are members of the ANA or other professional organizations” and that number is declining. The ANA should reconsider its new position on assisted suicide for the good of all nurses and even society itself.

In the end, who will remain or want to enter a healthcare profession that allows helping some patients kill themselves? And how many of us would be just as trusting with a nurse who is as comfortable with assisting our suicide as he or she is with caring for us?

 

Contact

Marianne Linane RN, MS, MA, National Association of Pro-Life Nurses Executive Director

📞  (202) 556-1240
✉  Director@nursesforlife.org

Nancy Valko, RN ALNC Spokesperson for the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses

📞 (314)504-5208

Website: www.nursesforlife.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Nurses4life/