Wife Loses Lawsuit to Prevent Husband’s Euthanasia

By Wesley J. Smith

Euthanasia/assisted suicide subverts family cohesion. For example, what if one spouse wants to be made dead, and that decision is opposed by the other? Or, what if siblings object to a depressed brother’s decisions to be put down and beg doctors not to kill him, to no avail?

Both cases happened in Canada, the most recent involving a wife trying to prevent her husband’s being euthanized. She lost because the benefit of the doubt goes to death once assisted suicide/euthanasia becomes legal. From the Saltwire.com story:

As part of the evidence, one nurse practitioner said the husband met the criteria for assisted suicide, while another argued he did not. The latter “authored a separate written report in which she elaborated that ‘I do not feel he is capable of making decisions regarding MAID due to dementia. . . . He has a grievous progressive and incurable illness (dementia/COPD) but I do not feel that death is foreseeable.’ ”

Imagine being helpless to prevent a doctor or nurse practitioner from killing your beloved spouse!

We saw the same phenomenon here in the States, too. Early on in Oregon’s assisted-suicide regime (as reported by the Oregonian), Kate Cheney — an elderly woman with dementia — was determined by a psychiatrist to be mentally ineligible to consent to assisted suicide, and moreover, believed Cheney’s daughter might be driving the process. If the “protective guidelines” worked as advertised, that would have been the end of it. But, as often happens, the daughter went doctor shopping and a psychologist okayed the assisted suicide despite the potential for family pressure. And so it came to pass.

The moral of these stories: In a culture of death, death always has the upper hand.

Full Article & Source:
Wife Loses Lawsuit to Prevent Husband’s Euthanasia

Nevada Legalizes Starving Incapacitated Patients

This is stunning. Nevada has passed a law allowing competent persons to sign an advance directive instructing that all food and water be withheld if they become incapacitated by dementia. In other words, the law allows people to order their future care givers to starve and dehydrate them to death.

From the “End of Life Decisions Addendum Statement of Desires” portion of the advance directive form established in law by SB 121 (my emphasis).

(Insert name of agent) might have to decide, if you get very sick, whether to continue with your medicine or to stop your medicine, even if it means you might not live, (Insert name of agent) will talk to you to find out what you want to do, and will follow your wishes.

If you are not able to talk to (insert name of agent), you can help him or her make these decisions for you by letting your agent know what you want.

Here are your choices. Please circle yes or no to each of the following statements and sign your name below:
1. I want to take all the medicine and receive any treatment I can to keep me alive regardless of how the medicine or treatment makes me feel.

YES
NO
…
4. I want to get food and water even if I do not want to take medicine or receive treatment.

YES
NO

The highlighted question does not involve feeding tubes, which is a medical treatment. It isn’t about not providing nourishment when someone stops eating and drinking naturally as part of the dying process. Nor does it involve force feeding the patient. No, this provision requires withholding oral or spoon feeding.

Realize that this form could force caregivers to starve patients even when they willingly eat and drink — perhaps even if they ask for food or water. (This has happened before in a feeding tube case in Florida.) Don’t take my word for it. From an article on the Nevada law by bioethicist Thaddeus Mason Pope:

Even after we stop offering food and fluids, other problems may arise. Most problematically, the patient may make gestures or utterances that seem to contradict her prior instructions [to be starved].

Does such communication revoke the advance directive? A recent court case from the Netherlands suggests the answer is “no.” Once the patient reaches late-stage dementia, she is unable to knowingly and voluntarily revoke decisions she made with capacity. But the answer remains uncertain in the United States.

We certainly know the answer that bioethicists like Pope would urge on the courts. Besides, there is nothing in the law requiring that the provision quoted above only apply to “late stage” dementia.

Note also that the law does not require the signer to receive detailed information about the agony that starving and dehydrating entails. Symptoms can include extreme drying, seizures, mottling, and intense pain.

This law doesn’t just impact helpless patients, but also the emotional wellbeing of their caregivers. What kind of a person would presume to force anyone to do such a thing? Imagine the emotional impact! No one should have that right.

And what if doctors or nurses object? Could they be forced at the threat of being sued or professionally disciplined to starve a patient to death?

The Nevada law is silent, but medical professionals have been sued frequently for refusing to comply with advance directives. Besides, bioethicists and the medical establishment are hell-bent on destroying medical conscience by forcing healthcare professionals to engage in actions that violate their religious and/or moral beliefs as the price of licensure. Talk about a prescription for a brain drain!

One last point: The ultimate purpose behind laws such as this isn’t starvation, but rather, to gull us into allowing the aged, disabled, mentally incapacitated, and dying to be killed by lethal injection. After all, the ghouls will say, if we are going to end people’s lives, at least let’s do it humanely.

No! Let’s not do it.

Our cultural death obsession is really getting out of hand. Those with eyes to see, let them see.

Full Article & Source:
Nevada Legalizes Starving Incapacitated Patients

Culture of Death: Belgium Eyes Child Euthanasia

Since euthanasia was legalized in Belgium in 2002, Belgians have been euthanized for blindness, depression, anorexia nervosa, and a botched sex-change operation.

 

Now, Belgians want to allow euthanasia for children.

 

Under legislation currently being debated in the Belgian Parliament, terminally ill or suffering children under 18 could be euthanized if they request it, their parents consent to it, and an expert deems the child capable of understanding their decision.

 

The bill is widely supported and is expected to become law.
 

'Kids Never Choose Death'
Supporters of Belgium's proposed euthanasia law say it is necessary and compassionate, but critics say it is only the next phase in what they call "a culture of death."

 

Euthanasia is now considered medical therapy in Belgium.

 

Not only do two-thirds of Belgians favor the new euthanasia bill, but in a controversial poll, three quarters said it would be OK for parents to euthanize their sick children without the child's consent.

 

"The child does not have the maturity to get married or to buy alcohol or to buy cigarettes if he is 14. Now we are saying that because he is suffering, he might have the possibility to ask for euthanasia," Carine Boucher, with the European Center for Bio-ethics in Brussels, said.

 

Michel De Keukelaere, a law student and the founder of the March for Life in Brussels said, "Children never choose to die. I don't believe a child under 18 who is sick and who is ill wants to die."

 

"Who will give the suggestion to the child that one of the solutions is euthanasia?" Boucher asked. "A child doesn't know what euthanasia is. A child doesn't know what death is."

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Culture of Death: Belgium Eyes Child Euthanasia