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State Moves One Step Closer to Legalizing Assisted Suicide for the Terminally Ill

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Minnesota moved one step closer this week to legalizing assisted suicide for terminally ill people.

A Minnesota bill that would allow terminally ill people to ingest deadly drugs to end their lives passed the House Health Finance and Policy Committee on Thursday in a 10-5 vote, meaning it advances to the Public Safety Committee.

The bill, called the “End of Life Options Act,” or HF1930, would allow an adult 18 or older who is diagnosed with a terminal illness and given six months or less to live to self-administer drugs to kill themselves.

A person who wants these drugs must have the mental capacity to give their informed consent — people with dementia would not qualify — and they must be able to self-administer the drugs. At least two healthcare providers, including one physician, must evaluate the person and agree they meet the criteria.

Ten states and Washington, D.C. already allow some form of assisted suicide. Oregon was the first state to legalize it in 1994. In New York, an assisted suicide bill is stalled but slowly gaining momentum among lawmakers. (Read more from “State Moves One Step Closer to Legalizing Assisted Suicide for the Terminally Ill” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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‘Quickly Turned Horrific’: Family Hears Woman Screaming as She’s Euthanized

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The euthanasia program in Belgium has come under fire again, following news that a woman was suffocated with a pillow after the cocktail of drugs administered to her failed to end her life.

Le Soir, a European media outlet, reported that Alexina Wattiez, who was just 36 years old, sought euthanasia after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. In 2021, her doctor informed her that she would not survive for another year, and by March of 2022, her health was deteriorating.

Christophe Stulens, Wattiez’s partner, was there when she died, along with his 15-year-old daughter, Tracy. A doctor and two nurses came to the home that the three shared to carry out the euthanasia. “After a short night’s sleep, I was woken up by a nurse who told me that Alexina was doing very badly,” Stulens said. “Then the doctor took some syringes and we were asked if we wanted to say goodbye.”

Stulens and his daughter were told to wait outside, so they went onto the terrace, but what they thought would be a peaceful death quickly turned horrific: they heard screaming. . .

An autopsy was performed, and found that Wattiez died of asphyxiation. Allegedly, the nurses took turns using a pillow to suffocate her. “Alexina wanted to sleep peacefully, but apparently there were too few resources,” Stulens said. The Public Prosecution Service of Liège has now opened a murder investigation, while Stulens is suing. (Read more from “‘Quickly Turned Horrific’: Family Hears Woman Screaming as She’s Euthanized” HERE)

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Parents Given Permission to Euthanize Children If They Have Certain Diseases

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Children between the ages of 1 and 12 now can be euthanized in one European nation after officials there extended their voluntary death laws to cover them.

The only qualification appears to be that they have a terminal illness and be suffering.

The Telegraph reported the Dutch government has tweaked its Euthanasia Act so that children are covered for the first time.

“Under the change, euthanasia – legal, voluntary death carried out by a doctor – will only be an option for children who are suffering unbearably with no hope of improvement and for whom palliative care cannot bring relief,” the report explained.

Health minister Ernst Kuipers said the death procedure now is available for “children who are so ill that death is unavoidable and they are expected to die soon.” (Read more from “Parents Given Permission to Euthanize Children If They Have Certain Diseases” HERE)

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Disabled Man Dies After 9 Days of Court-Ordered Forced Starvation

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Following nine days of starvation, after French courts gave the green light to his slow, torturous means of death at the hands of French doctors, 42-year-old Vincent Lambert passed away Thursday.

The Catholic Herald reported that Lambert, a disabled French man and former nurse, died in Reims, France, after a years-long legal battle between his wife and his parents.

The Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life tweeted that Lambert’s death was a “defeat for our humanity.” In a separate statement, Pope Francis urged: “Let us not build a civilization that discards persons those whose lives we no longer consider to be worthy of living: every life is valuable, always.”

Lambert was left a quadriplegic after sustaining massive head injuries during a 2008 traffic accident. His wife wanted to take him off life support years ago; his parents didn’t. After years of legal battles that went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Cassation in June overruled an order to maintain Lambert’s feeding and hydration support, a story at Aleteia explained.

On July 2, doctors informed the family that Lambert’s tube would be removed, effectively condemning the man to a slow death by starvation and dehydration.

Following the July decision, Lambert’s mother, Viviane, issued a final, desperate plea to save her son.

“I am launching a call for help today. Without your intervention, my son will be euthanized due to his brain handicap,” Viviane told a U.N. panel in Geneva, explaining that her son was “in a state of minimal [consciousness] but he is not a vegetable.”

“In May, when learning about his planned death, [Vincent] cried,” Viviane continued. “We are deeply upset this is why we have turned to the U.N. Committee of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities because the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities prohibits depriving a person of food and drink.”

“He sleeps at night, wakes up during the day, and looks at me when I talk,” Viviane said. “He only needs to be fed through a special device and his doctor wants to deprive him of this so that he can die, while legal experts have have shown that this is not necessary.”

“It’s murder in disguise,” Vincent’s 90-year-old father, Pierre Lambert, told reporters at the hospital earlier this week. “It’s euthanasia.” (For more from the author of “Disabled Man Dies After 9 Days of Court-Ordered Forced Starvation” please click HERE)

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Canada Euthanizes Thousands of Patients to Save Money

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Prolific Canadian documentary film maker Kevin Dunn has embarked upon his latest production FATAL FLAWS. In conjunction with the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Mr. Dunn explores, amongst other things, the short step from physician assisted suicide to euthanasia. This is exactly what is happening in Canada in the 14 months since physician assisted suicide became legal.

More than 2,000 Canadians have died with medical assistance since 2015 (including Quebec). Cancer represented 64% of assisted deaths, followed by circulatory/respiratory and neurodegenerative diseases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis (MS).

How did the numbers break down? (Excluding Québec, and the Territories) From June 17 – December 31, 2016, 507 people received medical assisted death, of which 503 were administered by doctors or nurse practitioners. Only 4 were self-administered suicides. From January 1st – June 30th 2017 there were 875 medically assisted deaths of which 874 were administered by a physician or nurse. One was self administered suicide. Of the 1,482 assisted death for the year, only 5 were self-administered suicides (0.0033%). In practice what Canada legalized in 2016 was not assisted suicide, it legalized euthanasia by another name. (Read more from “Canada Euthanizes Thousands of Patients to Save Money” HERE)

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Pediatricians ‘Increasingly’ Asked About Euthanasia for Kids

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The Canadian Paediatric Society is urging improved palliative care for children and youth as a key part of preparing for the possibility of legalizing medical assistance in dying for certain patients under age 18 . . .

“Where the issue of medical assistance in dying is ever raised by a child, you know, we would advocate that that should automatically be a referral for pediatric palliative care.”

When Bill C-14, the law governing medically assisted dying for adults, was passed in June 2016, it included a requirement that the ministers of justice and health initiate an independent review on whether “mature minors” — youth under age 18 but deemed capable of giving consent — should be eligible for medically assisted death. That review is expected to be presented to Parliament by December 2018.

Davies, who is chairing the working group on mature minors as part of that review, is the lead author of a report released by the Canadian Paediatric Society on Thursday. The report made the palliative care recommendation and also summarized the results of surveys asking pediatricians about their views on making assisted death available to terminally ill young patients, and whether they had received any inquiries or requests about it . . .

Thirty-five pediatricians said they had “exploratory discussions” with a total of 60 patients under the age of 18 in the preceding year. Nine pediatricians received “explicit requests” for assisted death from a total of 17 minors. (Read more from “Pediatricians ‘Increasingly’ Asked About Euthanasia for Kids” HERE)

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Judge: OK to Starve Disabled Patients Without Court Order

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A judge has ruled that Court permission will not be needed to remove food and fluids from severely brain damaged patients, a move which has caused concern among opponents of euthanasia.

Unlike other forms of medical care, the decision to withdraw food and fluids from patients in a “permanent vegetative state” (the term “unresponsive wakefulness syndrome” is now generally preferred) has until now been referred to the Court of Protection, even if doctors and relatives are in agreement.

Now, the decision by Mr Justice Jackson means those cases will no longer have to come to court. He made his ruling in a case concerning a 50-year-old woman who suffered from a degenerative illness for 14 years. The patient, known in court as M, had Huntington’s disease and was bed-ridden in hospital and fed by a tube. The Court heard that she had shown no sign of awareness for 18 months.

Mr Justice Jackson agreed with her family and doctors that withdrawing nutrition from her would be in her best interests. The tube was removed and she died in August. Mr Justice Jackson said in his view the case should not have come to court. (Read more from “Judge: OK to Starve Disabled Patients Without Court Order” HERE)

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Doctor’s Offer to Euthanize Young Woman Leaves Her Mother ‘Dumbfounded’

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A Newfoundland mother wants an apology from the hospital where, she says, a doctor suggested her daughter should be euthanized.

Sheila Elson says she’s particularly upset because her 25-year-old daughter, Candice Lewis, overheard the conversation and has been traumatized, reports the Northern Pen.

Lewis has suffered since birth from a number of medical conditions, including spina bifida, cerebral palsy and chronic seizure disorder . . .

Elson alleged that Dr. Aaron Heroux told her at that time assisted suicide was legal and her daughter qualified.

“This left me dumbfounded and I told him it was something I did not want to consider,” Elson told the Northern Pen. (Read more from “Doctor’s Offer to Euthanize Young Woman Leaves Her Mother ‘Dumbfounded'” HERE)

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Canadians Proposing to Euthanize Mentally Disabled Patients

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In the 1990s the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that assisted suicide is not a constitutional right. But the Court has again taken up the issue–and hence, I suspect the handwriting is on the wall.

That seems so clear that culture of death advocates are already making serious [euthanasia] proposals. . . University of Victoria bioethicist Eike-Henner W. Kluge has made news with a “Legislative Proposal” that would:

1. Establish euthanasia death courts–also being proposed in the UK–in a country that doesn’t permit capital punishment;
2. Allow a broad license to be euthanized based on almost wholly subjective criteria;
3. Allow the courts to order the incompetent to be euthanized.

Here are a few specifics. First, the right to be killed would be totally subjective, based on “values” of the person wanting to die:

If a person suffers from an incurable and irremediable disease or medical condition, and if that person experiences the disease or condition as violating the fundamental values of that person.

Good grief, that could mean anything beyond the transitory. (Read more about the proposal to euthanize mentally disabled patients HERE)

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Hundreds of Babies Euthanized Each Year in Netherlands

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photo credit: o5comBy Donna Rachel Edmunds. Just over a decade on from assisted dying being legalised in the Netherlands, as many as 1 in 33 Dutch people are thought to have died this way, including 650 babies a year, euthanized so that their parents don’t have to witness them struggle with disability or disease. The escalation in death by euthanasia over the last six years has led one Dutch ethicist, who had been in favour of the law when it was first passed, to warn “some slopes truly are slippery.”

Earlier this week, eighty prominent Britons wrote to the Telegraph calling for a commitment from all the political parties to revisit the question of assisted dying in the next Parliament, if a vote is not taken on the matter before the general election in May.

They wrote: “If there is not enough time for the Bill to complete its stages before the general election then it is imperative that Parliament continues this important debate afterwards.

“We are closer than ever to allowing dying people to have safeguarded choice in how they approach their deaths. Whoever forms the next government must allow time for Parliament to reach consensus on a safeguarded law.” (Read more about the babies euthanized each year in the Netherlands HERE)

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Pregnant 16 Year Old Killed by Mother and Brother for ‘Family Honor’

By Express News Service. In another case of honour killing, the mother and brother of the pregnant minor girl, whose body was found in the bushes near her home on December 23 under Kandhai police station area in Pratapgarh district, were arrested on Monday for allegedly killing her.

The police said the victim’s brother had come to know about her pregnancy and caught her trying to get in touch with her boyfriend on the night of December 22.

According to the police, ever since the incident came to light they suspected that the teenage girl may have been killed by her own family members in the name of honour.

Following investigations, the police arrested her mother, aged 50, and her 24-year-old brother, who used to run a bicycle repair shop near his house. The girl’s father was, however, not involved in the incident, police said. (Read more from this story HERE)