law

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.

 

 

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.

Pain and “Choice”

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

It was 1969 and I was fresh out of nursing school when I was assigned to a patient I will call “Jenny” who was thirty two years old and imminently dying of cancer. She was curled up in her bed, sobbing in pain and even moaned “just kill me.” The small dose of Demerol I injected into her almost non-existent buttocks every four hours “as needed” was not helping. I reassured Jenny that I was immediately calling the doctor and we would get her more comfortable.

However, I was shocked when the doctor said no to increasing or changing her medication. He said that he didn’t want her to get addicted! I told him exactly what Jenny said and also that she was obviously very close to death so addiction would not be a problem. The doctor repeated his no and hung up on me.

I went to my head nurse and told her what happened but she told me I had to follow the doctor’s order. Eventually, I went up the chain of command to the assistant director of nursing and finally the Chief of the Medical Staff. The verdict came down and I was threatened with immediate termination if I gave the next dose of Demerol even a few minutes early.

I refused to abandon Jenny so for the next two days before she died, I spent my time after my shift sitting with her for hours until she fell asleep. I gave her whatever food or drink she wanted. I stroked her back, held her hand and told stories and jokes. I asked her about her life. I did everything I could think of to distract her from her pain and make her feel better. It seemed to help, although not enough for me. I cried for Jenny all the way home.

And I was angry. I resolved that I would never watch a patient needlessly suffer like that again.

So I educated myself by reading everything I could about pain medicine and side effects. I also pestered doctors who were great at pain control to teach me about the management, precautions and rationale of effective pain management. I used that knowledge to advocate and help manage my patients’ pain as well as educating others.

I was delighted to see pain management become a major priority in healthcare and even called “the fifth vital sign” to be evaluated on every patient. I saw new developments like nerve blocks, new drugs and regimens to control pain and other techniques evolve as well as other measures to control symptoms like nausea, breathlessness and anxiety. Now we also have nutritional, psychological and other support for people with terminal illnesses and their families.

Best of all was that I never again saw another patient suffer like Jenny despite my working in areas such as ICU, oncology (cancer) and hospice.

TWENTY-FOUR YEARS LATER

When my oldest daughter was 14, she attended a public high school where the science teacher unexpectedly started praising the infamous Dr. Jack Kevorkian and his public campaign for legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia.  Kevorkian’s first reported victim was Janet Adkins, a 54 year old woman with Alzheimer’s in no reported physical pain who was hooked up to a  “death machine” in the back of a rusty van. Mrs. Adkins was just the first of as many as 130 Kevorkian victims, many if not most of whom were later found to have no terminal illness. Kevorkian escaped prosecution-even after he harvested a victim’s organs and offered them for transplant-until the TV show 60 Minutes aired Kevorkian’s videotape showing him giving a lethal injection to a man with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Shockingly, Kevorkian served only 8 years in prison before he was paroled and eventually became a media celebrity peddling assisted suicide and euthanasia.

My daughter, who never before showed any interest in my speaking and writing on the topic of assisted suicide, now stood up and peppered her teacher with facts about Kevorkian. The teacher asked her where she learned her information and she answered “From my mom who is a cancer nurse”.

Sarcastically, he responded “So your mother wants to watch people suffer?” My daughter responded “No, my mother just refuses to kill her patients!” End of discussion.

CONCLUSION

But not the end of the story. Tragically, we now have legalized assisted suicide in several states and serious efforts  to expand it to include people without physical pain but with conditions like Alzheimer’s, mental illness or other psychological distress as well as even children.

As Wesley Smith recently and astutely observed :

 Moreover, the statistics from Oregon and elsewhere show that very few people commit assisted suicide due to physical suffering. Rather, the issues are predominately existential, such as fears of being a burden or losing dignity

The public is being duped by groups like Compassion and Choices that campaign for legalized assisted suicide on the alleged basis of strict criteria for mentally competent, terminally ill adults in unbearable physical pain to freely choose physician-assisted suicide with (unenforceable) “safeguards”.

The emerging situation throughout the world is more like Kevorkian’s dream of unfettered and universal access to medical termination of the lives of “expendable” people. How much easier is that when people with expensive mental health problems, serious illnesses or disabilities can be encouraged to “choose” to be killed?

A Doctor’s New Euphoria

nancyvalko Compassion & Choices, health care reform, law, medical ethics

A Dec.4, 2016 Wall Street Journal article titled “Diagnosing Your Doc’s New Euphoria-Suddenly there’s hope for dismantling ObamaCare—and restoring sanity for doctors and patients” by Dr. Marc Siegel recounts the disturbing health insurance experiences of two of his patients in office visits.

He writes that:

Such encounters happen much more often now because ObamaCare has added low-quality heavily subsidized insurance that claims to be comprehensive and inflates patient expectations. This has bled into the entire health-care system, where more and more patients come to doctors expecting far more than we can possibly deliver regardless of their insurance….

Government regulations cause patients to buy expensive insurance policies. One example is ObamaCare’s requirement that everyone on the exchanges, Medicaid patients and businesses with fewer than 50 employees that provide coverage all be covered for maternity care and other benefits whether or not they need them.

He concludes:

 If much of ObamaCare is repealed, there will be room for more choice, competition and cost awareness. We can see a return of catastrophic health insurance with lower tax-deductible premiums, high deductibles and more payment up front, with government-run clinics for those who lack insurance.

I noticed my own doctor’s good mood the other day at my yearly wellness visit and I was not surprised. With the likely repeal or reform of Obamacare with its burdensome government regulation and compliance mandates, the current high burnout rate of physicians and other health care workers may decrease.

But there are other problems with Obamacare as it is structured today.

I have long been concerned about the direction of healthcare and in 2003, I was privileged to serve on a Catholic Medical Association task force on healthcare reform. Many great ideas, such as health savings accounts, measures to help the uninsured poor, and better conscience rights protections, were developed and published in a 2004 report entitled “Health Care in America: A Catholic Proposal for Renewal”. The result was some interest but little action as the Iraq War heated up.

In 2009, I wrote an article titled “A Nurse’s View of Ethics and Health Care Legislation”   about the proposed new Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). I read much of HR 3200, the 1000+-page proposed health care reform bill proposed before passage of the final Affordable Care Act that Rep. Nancy Pelosi famously said that Congress had “to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it”.   Here is some of what I wrote then with emphasis added:

I am also concerned about a massive governmental overhaul of our health care at an exorbitant financial as well as moral cost.

Much of the bill’s language is murky legalese that is hard to understand. Much of the language is vague enough to allow all sorts of interpretations — and consequences….

Government officials who advocate the proposed healthcare reform legislation are furiously trying to allay the fears of the increasing number of citizens who oppose the bill — but we have only to look at the statements and philosophy of the people supporting this bill to recognize potential dangers. Here are some examples:

— Compassion and Choices (the newest name for the pro-euthanasia Hemlock Society) boasted that it “has worked tirelessly with supportive members of congress to include in proposed reform legislation a provision requiring Medicare to cover patient consultation with their doctors about end-of-life choice (section 1233 of House Bill 3200).”

— On abortion, President Barack Obama not only said “I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose” on the January 22, 2009 anniversary of Roe v. Wade, but he also moved to rescind the recently strengthened federal conscience-rights protections for doctors and nurses who object to participating in abortion.

— On rationing: Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, President Obama’s health care advisor, wrote in the January 2009 issue of the British medical journal Lancet about using a “complete lives system” to allocate “scarce medical interventions”. He wrote that “When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.”

I hoped that I would be proven wrong about Obamacare but today’s problems with it speak for themselves.

Hopefully, our leaders will now come up with common sense and ethical changes that will meet the needs of the public and help healthcare providers provide the best care possible.

How Secrecy and Immunity Destroy “Safeguards” in Assisted Suicide Laws

nancyvalko assisted suicide, Compassion & Choices, conscience rights, law, medical ethics, nursing, suicide

Finally this November, a mainstream media source, the Des Moines Register, investigated some of the problems with legalized physician-assisted suicide in other states such as complications during the process, prolonged deaths,  non-existent or incomplete data in assisted suicide and even the “disputed meaning of ‘self-administer’” of the lethal overdose. This is crucial since Iowa is considering an assisted suicide bill in the legislature.

However, the Register’s reporting ignored one of the most dangerous legal problems in assisted suicide laws: immunity for doctors from “civil or criminal liability or professional disciplinary action for participating in good faith compliance” with the assisted suicide law.  In addition, the secrecy and often yearly destruction of even the minimal information self-reported by the doctors as well as  falsified death certificates listing such deaths as natural effectively destroys any pretense of an enforceable law.

This has made enforcement of so-called “safeguards” virtually impossible in states with legalized assisted suicide and affects even a state like my home state of Missouri that has a  law with penalties to prohibit assisted suicide.

THE MISSOURI EXPERIENCE

Missouri’s law against assisted suicide states:

A person commits the crime of voluntary manslaughter if he knowingly assists another in the commission of self-murder.
Mo. Rev. Stat. § 565.023.1

Yet despite years of failure, the pro-assisted suicide forces are again trying this year to get the standard assisted suicide bill passed in the Missouri legislature.

However, enforcement of the current Missouri law has been problematic. In the only case involving a health care professional, just a five years probation plea agreement was reached before a trial despite a nurse admitting she killed the patient, not assisting a suicide.

In 2001, Daillyn Pavia, RN  faced murder charges after she admitted giving a lethal dose of morphine to a new patient who had just had a stroke and was taken off life support.  According to police, Pavia admitted to co-workers that she had “without authorization and within a half-an-hour of taking charge of Julia Dawson as her patient … intentionally (given) Ms. Dawson 15 times the maximum dosage of morphine that had been prescribed” as well as Propofol, a strong sedative, that was not prescribed. The victim’s son defended the nurse’s action, saying it was done out of compassion and should not be prosecuted.

In 2003, 2 years later, nurse Pavia pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 5 years probation.  Nurse Pavia did not show up at a hearing before the Missouri State Board of Nursing which noted that Pavia was placed “on five years of supervised probation with the special condition that she surrender her nursing license.”

(Ironically, this decision followed on the heels of the decision not to prosecute Dr. Lloyd Thompson, then head of the Vermont Medical Society, for intentionally giving a paralyzing, “life ending drug” to an elderly woman with terminal cancer whose breathing machine had been removed. The family opposed prosecuting the doctor. Instead Thompson was reprimanded by the Vermont Medical Practice Board that required a monitoring and review of his care of all terminally ill patients.  10 years later, Vermont became the third state to legalize physician-assisted suicide.)

I could find only two other cases of people being charged with assisting a suicide in Missouri. One occurred in 1996 when Velma Howard, a woman with ALS died of suffocation in a motel with family members who admitted giving her sleeping medication, alcohol and a plastic bag. The prosecuting attorney later dropped charges against the family members.

The Jacob Runge assisted suicide case in 2010  resulted in a jury acquitting a young man who provided a gun to his emotionally disturbed friend in a self-described mutual suicide pact but said he could not go through with killing himself.

FALLOUT AND CONSEQUENCES

The fallout from these cases, like many others around the country, show that if someone-even a doctor or nurse-claims that they acted out of “mercy” it is unlikely that a person will face more than a slap on the wrist for ending or helping to end an ill or troubled person’s life.

In addition for those of us who are ethical and conscientious nurses, we feel the chilling effect discouraging us from even reporting other health care providers like nurse Pavia in such cases since we may face repercussions ourselves, including firing. There are apparently no real whistleblower protections for nurses (and thus the public) in such cases, especially since these cases routinely garner much media and public sympathy for the perpetrators and routinely result in minimal if any penalties. Conscience rights may not be enough to protect our patients and ourselves.

As a 2014 Medscape (password protected) article titled “Should Nurses Blow the Whistle or Just Keep Quiet?   by a nurse/lawyer author explains with regard to patient safety violations (which, of course, should include reporting the killing of a patient) :

Am I recommending that nurses adopt the “see nothing, hear nothing, speak nothing” attitude? No. I am saying that under current law, it is safer for a nurse not to report than to report. That surprises me, and it may be right- or wrong-minded, but it’s the way it is. (Emphasis added.)

This is exactly what pro-assisted suicide groups like Compassion and Choices could have hoped for when they fashioned the immunity protections and the secrecy of even the minimal self-reporting standards in their assisted suicide laws. Eliminating the possibility of future potential lawsuits or prosecutions is what keeps their myth of “no problems, no abuses” alive.

Unfortunately, that is also what puts all of us and our loved ones at risk, especially when we are at our most vulnerable. With legalized assisted suicide laws now quickly expanding to other states, we must step up our efforts to educate the public and fight against the well-funded and relentless Compassion and Choices machine.

And there is one significant effort that any of us can do.  Consider asking your own doctor or health care provider where he or she stands on assisted suicide and feel free to state your position. If your doctor is in favor of assisted suicide, you might want to consider asking for a referral to another doctor who refuses to provide assisted suicide. The life you save may be your own.

High Priority: Public Comments Needed on ANA’s New Draft Position Paper on Denying Food and Water

nancyvalko assisted suicide, conscience rights, end-of-life, law, medical ethics, nursing, terninal/palliative sedation

Although the American Nurses Association (ANA) claims it represents the over 3 million US nurses, only a tiny fraction of nurses actually belong. ANA does not give out the actual number of members. I used to belong both my state nursing organization as well as the ANA to try to uphold good nursing ethics and conscience rights for nurses. I finally gave up when my state organization would not address even the conscience rights of nurses in the Nancy Cruzan feeding tube case. I gave up on the ANA when I discovered that the ANA opposed a ban on partial birth abortion without notifying its membership. I only found this out when I watched a TV show on politics mentioning the ANA position. I called the ANA public relations department myself to protest both their position and not notifying members like me and resigned.

Yesterday, I received a call from a nurse in another state who sent me the website for public comments due by 5 pm ET 12/1/2016 about a proposed new ANA position on nutrition and hydration at the end of life.

The proposed position paper is 9 pages long and I sent the following comments with the referenced lines as requested. It would have taken me many pages to address all the issues:

Lines 18-24.  In the past, the hospice principle of never prolonging or hastening death at the end of life was paramount. Now, this has been subjugated to a legalized autonomy (even when exercised by a third party) to decide when to hasten death.

However, nurses are professionals whose integrity depends on proper respect for their conscience rights, especially when it comes to decisions about hastening death.  This concern is absent in this draft.

We do have such a provision in Missouri law that states:

Missouri Revised Statutes
Section 404.872.1

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)

Line 88: There is no definition of “severe neurological conditions”.
Line 90 on “Dementia, recognized as a terminal illness associated with anorexia and cachexia”.  As a former hospice nurse and caregiver for my mother until her death as well as a volunteer for people with dementia, this is an alarming and potentially dangerous assertion. No one should have to die by dehydration and indeed many people with dementia can be spoon-fed like my mother until natural death. I have likewise seen several people begging for food or water but denied because of a decision not to place a feeding tube or spoon feed.

Lines 101-104. VSED as described is really assisted suicide and implicitly changes ANA opposition to medically assisted suicide.

Also, in a New York Times article in October titled “The VSED Exit: A Way to Speed Up Dying, Without Asking Permission”, Dr. Timothy Quill (past president of the AAPHM and the doctor arguing for the constitutionality of assisted suicide in the 1997 Vacco v Quill US Supreme Court case) was quoted as claiming that while VSED is “generally quite comfortable at the beginning”, he also states that “You want a medical partner to manage your symptoms,” because “It’s harder than you think.”

How hard?

In 2000, Quill and Dr. Ira Byock (a palliative care doctor who speaks against legalizing physician-assisted suicide while also supporting VSED and terminal sedation) wrote an article titled “Responding to Intractable Terminal Suffering: The Role of Terminal Sedation and Voluntary Refusal of Food and Fluids” . The patient was a doctor who wanted to die before his symptoms became worse. He was given a morphine drip that had to be increased to total unconsciousness on day 10 because he became “confused and agitated and began having hallucinations”.

Lines 114-115 cite “Psychological, spiritual, or existential suffering, as well as physical suffering” but only say that “Symptom control is imperative” rather than oppose participation in VSED  for people who are not even terminally ill.

Lines 149-150 state that “Decisions about accepting or forgoing nutrition and hydration will be honored including those decisions about artificially delivered nutrition as well as VSED”. This blanket statement destroys the conscience rights of nurses as well as our duty to advocate for our patients’ best interests. (Emphasis added)

Ironically, the ANA’s 2010 position paper on reproductive rights (i.e. abortion) states that:

“Also,nurses have the right to refuse to participate in a particular case on ethical grounds. However, if a client’s life is in jeopardy, nurses are obligated to provide for the client’s safety and to avoid abandonment.” (Emphasis added) Apparently, the ANA is proposing that the right to refuse to participate ends when the death of the patient is deliberately intended.

CONCLUSION

Just this week, it was reported that a union for Australian nurses is backing voluntary euthanasia. The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (SA branch) is even partnering with other Compassion and Choices-style groups in Australia to pass a voluntary euthanasia bill. This could well be our future here in the US if we do not respond.

As nurses and citizens, we need to fight for truly patient-safe health care by responding to groups like the ANA through comments sections like the one above (which ends December 1) and in the media. We must also support and insist on ethical health care providers for ourselves and our loved ones as well as protecting our patients. As much as we can, we can also help state and national organizations that fight against euthanasia.

Especially if you are a nurse, consider joining the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses and following our Facebook page.

Our profession, our patients and even our nation are at stake!

 

 

Oh, Colorado!

nancyvalko assisted suicide, Compassion & Choices, conscience rights, euthanasia, law, medical ethics, Uncategorized

Of course, the big news from the national voting last week was the stunning election of Donald Trump as president. But  barely mentioned by the media except for its passage was  Colorado’s Proposition 106 “End of Life Options Act initiative which won by a 65% to 35% popular vote. Now five states have formally legalized physician assisted suicide. Montana had a court ruling that state physician-assisted suicide is not “against public policy” but no law legalizing assisted suicide has been passed.

I remember going to Colorado about 20 years ago to speak against an assisted suicide bill in the state legislature. Enthusiasm was high and the assisted suicide bill was subsequently voted down in the legislature. But, as in other states including my own Missouri, the assisted suicide proponents never stopped pushing their agenda over and over again.

With their efforts often stymied in state legislatures after robust debate and testimony, well-funded groups like Compassion and Choices turn to the promotion of state initiatives. Colorado now joins Oregon and Washington State in legalizing assisted suicide by popular vote.

However, with groups like Compassion and Choices trying to normalize assisted suicide as just another valid medical decision, medical groups increasingly intimidated into neutrality and an almost entirely sympathetic mainstream media holding up Brittany Maynard as the ultimate poster child, the average person is easily persuaded to not look too closely  at the reality of assisted suicide.

For example, here is just the title of the Colorado ballot measure. There is also a much longer ballot summary and a link to the full proposed law.

“Shall there be a change to the Colorado revised statutes to permit any mentally capable adult Colorado resident who has a medical prognosis of death by terminal illness within six months to receive a prescription from a willing licensed physician for medication that can be self-administered to bring about death; and in connection therewith, requiring two licensed physicians to confirm the medical prognosis, that the terminally-ill patient has received information about other care and treatment options, and that the patient is making a voluntary and informed decision in requesting the medication; requiring evaluation by a licensed mental health professional if either physician believes the patient may not be mentally capable; granting immunity from civil and criminal liability and professional discipline to any person who in good faith assists in providing access to or is present when a patient self-administers the medication; and establishing criminal penalties for persons who knowingly violate statutes relating to the request for the medication?”

But what might have happened if this alternative language was used?

Should Colorado change the Colorado revised statues to permit a licensed doctor of any specialty in conjunction with a similar doctor to write a prescription for a lethal overdose to cause death for any adult resident that the doctors expect to die within 6 months; 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; grant immunity for the doctors and others from civil or criminal penalty as long as they claim “good faith” intentions; require that the death certificate falsely state the cause of death as a natural medical condition instead of the lethal overdose; prohibit life insurance policies from being affected by a request for a legal lethal overdose and prohibit  public information about such lethal overdoses except a yearly statistical report as reported by the doctors involved? (Emphasis added)

Of course, we will never know.

But when we allow medical/legal protections and standards to be suspended for some suicidal people considered expendable based on an estimated prognosis and personal fear of even potential pain and/or dependence,  we will inevitably see the pool of potential victims of medical termination expand and lethal injections accepted, as is already  happening in Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.

Just as bad, we will also be creating a class of medical serial terminators immune from any real oversight and accountability while penalizing ethical health care providers who refuse to participate or refer.