The 64-year-old woman died in March after being sick “for a very long time,” said a spokesman for the Right to Die-NL (NVVE) group.

She had insisted “for several years” that she wanted to be euthanized, added spokesman Walburg de Jong.

“It is really a very important step — before, patients dying by euthanasia were at really very early stages of dementia, which was not the case with this woman,” de Jong said.

Euthanasia is allowed in the Netherlands only if the patient suffers intolerable pain due to an illness diagnosed as incurable by a doctor. The patient must give authorization while in full control of his mental faculties.

“This is also a message for doctors since they often refuse to euthanise people in advanced stages of dementia even though they have expressly asked for it,” de Jong said.

The Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia in April 2002.

Each euthanasia case is reported to one of five special commissions, each made up of a doctor, a jurist and an ethical expert charged with verifying that all required criteria had been respected.

It was not immediately clear whether the case of the woman in question had gone through such a commission.

Dutch courts have in the past jailed people for contravening the criteria for assisted suicide.

Courtesy The National Post

Carter vs. Attorney General of Canada brings a constitutional challenge to Canada’s laws prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia. The case also seeks to legalize these practices as a medical treatment. Last year, a bill in Parliament seeking a similar result was overwhelmingly defeated.

The plaintiffs include the family of Kay Carter, a British Columbia woman with significant disabilities who died via assisted suicide in Switzerland in 2010. The case will be heard Monday.

This article’s focus is physician-assisted suicide. Legalizing this practice would be a recipe for elder abuse. Legalization would also empower the Canadian health-care system to the detriment of individual patient rights.

On April 21, 2010, Parliament defeated Bill C-384, which would have legalized physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada. The vote was 228 to 59.

Carter seeks to allow a medical practitioner or a person “acting under the general supervision of a medical practitioner” to assist a patient’s suicide. Carter’s amended notice of civil claim states:

” ‘Physician-assisted suicide’ means an assisted suicide where assistance to obtain or administer medication or other treatment that intentionally brings about the patient’s own death is provided by a medical practitioner . . . or by a person acting under the general supervision of a medical practitioner. . . .”

In the context of traditional medical treatment, “a person acting under the general supervision of a medical practitioner” would include a family member. An example would be an adult child who administers medication to a parent under the general supervision of a doctor who is not present. Typically, this would be in a home setting.

In Carter, the amended notice of civil claim argues that laws prohibiting physician-assisted suicide are unconstitutional for patients who are “grievously and irremediably ill.” The term is not defined. The amended notice of civil claim does, however, give these examples of qualifying diseases/ conditions: “cancer, chronic renal failure and/or cardiac failure, and degenerative neurological diseases such as Huntington’s disease and multiple sclerosis.” The phrase “grievously and irremediably ill” would also appear to apply to chronic conditions such as diabetes and HIV/AIDS. People who have these diseases and conditions can have years and, sometimes, decades to live.

The amended notice of civil claim does not seek to require that the death be witnessed. The medical practitioner is not required to be present at the patient’s death.

In the United States, there are two states where physician-assisted suicide is legal: Oregon and Washington. In each state, assisted suicide laws were passed via highly financed sound-bite ballot initiative campaigns. A ballot initiative is similar to a referendum in Canada. In the United States, no assisted suicide law has made it through the scrutiny of a legislature despite more than 100 attempts.

In 2010, there was a proposed bill to legalize assisted suicide in Montana. During a hearing on the bill, Senator Jeff Essmann made this observation:

“All the protections (in Oregon’s law) end after the prescription is written. (The proponents) admitted that the provisions in the Oregon law would permit one person to be alone in that room with the patient. And in that situation, there is no guarantee that that medication is self-administered.”

Elder abuse includes physical, psychological and financial abuse. Financial abuse is the most commonly reported type. Elder abuse is, however, largely unreported and can be difficult to detect. This is due in part to the reluctance of victims to report.

Elders’ vulnerabilities and relative wealth have led to murder, with the perpetrators often being family members. An example is Melissa Friedrich, the Internet Black Widow. She killed her first husband and is accused of poisoning her second husband and another elderly man to get their money.

If assisted suicide were to be legalized via Carter, new paths of abuse would be created against the elderly. The most obvious path would be due to Carter’s lack of required witnesses at the death. Without disinterested witnesses, an opportunity is created for a family member, or someone else who will benefit from the patient’s death, to administer the medication without consent. Even if he struggled, who could know?

Consider also this comment from Nancy Elliott, a former member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives: “Assisted suicide laws empower heirs and others to pressure and abuse older people to cut short their lives. This is especially an issue when the older person has money. There is no assisted suicide law that you can write to correct this huge problem.”

Preventing elder abuse is official government of Canada policy.

In Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1997, people desiring treatment under the Oregon Health Plan have been offered assisted suicide instead. The most well known cases involve Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup. Each wanted treatment. The plan offered them assisted suicide instead.

Neither Wagner nor Stroup saw this as a celebration of their individual rights. Wagner said: “I’m not ready to die.” Stroup said: “This is my life they’re playing with.”

If assisted suicide were to be legalized in Canada, the Canadian health-care system would be similarly empowered to steer patients to suicide. With legal assisted suicide, the health-care system, doctors and the government would be empowered, not individual patients.

Oregon’s suicide rate, which excludes suicides under its physician-assisted suicide law, has been “increasing significantly” since 2000. Just three years prior, Oregon legalized physicianassisted suicide. This increase in other suicides is consistent with a suicide contagion. In other words, one type of suicide encouraged other suicides.

In Canada, preventing suicide is a significant public health issue.

Carter’s claim that legalization of assisted suicide will enhance individual rights is untrue. Legalizing assisted suicide would instead be a recipe for elder abuse. Heirs and other predators would be empowered at the expense of the individual rights of older Canadians to safety and security. Legalization would also empower the health-care system, doctors and the government to steer patients to suicide. Some individuals with many quality years left would be encouraged to kill themselves.

Will Johnston is chairman of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, BC. Margaret Dore is an elder-law lawyer in Washington state. Alex Schadenberg is executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Courtesy The Calgary Herald

Stephen Passmore

CANADIAN CATHOLIC NEWS
DEBORAH GYAPONG

OTTAWA – Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) spokesman Stephen Passmore warned legalized euthanasia would have a dire impact on the disabled.

The 3.6 million – or one out of eight – Canadians who live with disabilities already feel unwanted, unequal and unaccepted by Canadian society, he told a Dec. 1 news conference on Parliament Hill.

He warned legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide will contribute towards those feelings of unworthiness and lead to fears they may be “terminated.”

Passmore, who was born with cerebral palsy, said thousands of dollars were spent during his childhood to give him greater mobility. The attitude in the health care system was to give him everything he needed to help him be better included in Canadian society.

Under legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide, instead of health care dollars going to help someone like him be able to walk, people like him might be offered a needle, he warned.

“Once death is offered as an option, it becomes an implied suggestion,” he said.

Devastating Effect

He also noted the devastating effect legalization would have on the patient-doctor relationship. “Our whole medical system is based on trust,” Passmore said.

“If euthanasia and assisted suicide is legalized, as I age, will I ever be able to trust the doctors when I know this is an option?”

“I will never go into a hospital again,” he said. “I’m afraid as a person who is supported by the government that it will be cheaper to kill me than to keep me.”

EPC executive director Alex Schadenberg addressed the specific dangers of Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde’s assisted suicide and euthanasia Bill C-384. “It’s written so widely you could drive a hearse through it.”
If passed, a doctor could terminate the life of a patient who “appeared to be lucid” without investigating further whether that patient was truly competent.

It also allows for the assisted suicides of individuals with chronic physical or mental pain. That means people with chronic depression could get help from a doctor to commit suicide.

“We should be focusing on how we care for people, not on how we end their lives,” he said.
The bill had been scheduled for its second and last hour of debate for Dec. 1, with a vote on Dec. 2, but Lalonde has postponed the debate and vote to Feb. 2 and 3.

Courtesy The Western Catholic Reporter.

On Tuesday the 26th a new doctor came in and saw her and said she was in a vegetated state and wouldn’t live probably one or two days. His sister decided instead of the nursing home which we did not approve of, she would take her home to die. The doctor told her she needed to stop all means of support, feeding, medications and he would turn her over to Hospice. She has not been given one drop of water or food since the 26th. We have tried to get help from everywhere and can’t. Even Hospice said they couldn’t talk with us because our name was not on their sheet. No one has Power of Attorney. The Hospital said because Joyce we the oldest they were obligated to go with her wishes. She can sign checks and she has recently put everything in her name but that is all.

We could care less if there is $1 or $1000 we just want her to live and at this point there is no hope. We begged them to give her water after the 3rd day because I said apparently it’s not her time to go but they refused. What can we do? These people should pay for what they have done. WE check on her 3 or 4 times a day. I am a former ICU and Pediatric LPN. I teach school now. I know how to check vital signs and can tell a difference in breath and hear sounds. Her respiration are only coming from the upper left lobe and her heart is slowing down from 176 to about 90 with periods of skipping and tachycardia. Her tongue is swollen, her mouth dry, eyes red and skin will stand up when pinched.

I can’t stand this. I called just a few minutes ago and they said she’s the same she’s been since Sunday. They don’t even get close enough to tell that the breathing and heart is worse. Please put me in touch with someone that will help and that doesn’t care that Hospice was called in.

She wasn’t in a coma, she was fully conscious to the last breath.

The doctor [was] supposed to save her life, or at least care for her, ignored her diabetes and put her on Morphine. She died a horrible death, like a criminal on a death row. We were not informed of their decision, not even explained what happened to lead to that. When our priest commented [on] the use of morphine, one nurse replied annoyed, “doctor’s order”. I found out how she died when I started to ask questions re-garding [sic] the fact that she was on no monitors for heart or blood pressure, although they said she had a heart attack.

The “heart attack” eventually occurred over 24 hours of intenssive [sic] morphine.

Can you help me? Thanks.
Sincerely,
Marina

With the recent high profile cases of UK citizens opting for assisted suicide in clinics overseas it raises the question of whether it should be legalised here in the UK. European countries such as Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg already allow assisted suicide to take place legally and there are growing calls in other European countries including the UK to follow suit.

“With Nurses being on the front line of care here in the UK we wanted to get their opinion on this sensitive subject” stated Matt Farrah, Sales Director of Nurses.co.uk. “The results show overwhelmingly that nurses here in the UK would like the law to remain as it is and for assisted suicide to remain illegal.”

Nurses.co.uk is a leading portal for Nurses and Nursing Jobs here in the UK. Over 30,000 nurses visit our site every month to search over 3000 vacancies, share opinions on the forum and get up to date news on the health care industry.

A Canadian study on palliative care, published in the August 1995 American Journal of Psychiatry, reinforced what past research had documented – when physical pain is controlled and depression is treated, terminally ill people do not want to die.

According to the research finding, the desire to die among the terminally ill was associated with clinical depression, a treatable condition. Other factors contributing to a desire to end one’s life were uncontrolled pain and the feeling that one had little family and social support.

The Canadian study’s author is Dr. Harvey Chochinov, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba. The study’s participants were 200 patients at two Winnipeg hospitals. Their average age was 71 years and they survived about 43 days from the time of their interview until death.

Of the 200 people interviewed, 17 had a pervasive desire for death. After two weeks of inpatient palliative care, four of six people who were reinterviewed, changed their minds about wanting their lives to end. Only six of the 17 were reinterviewed as the others had died or were too ill to participate.

Dr Chochinov states that depression was far more common among the patients that wanted early death than among those who did not. “Our findings indicate that a substantial proportion of terminally ill patients who express a desire for death could potentially benefit from a trial of treatment for depression,” he said.

Being depressed and feeling hopeless makes such a person “more vulnerable to the suggestion of others, thereby increasing the potential for abuse” of assisted suicide. This is the case in the Netherlands, where patients are euthanized, even though their suffering is remediable. The Dutch euthanasia enthusiasts are assisting physically healthy but depressed patients to die. Instead of killing the pain they kill the patient. The tragedy in Holland is that they are eliminating the suffering person, instead of seeking ways to eliminate suffering.

The Canadian study verifies that the hospice alternative provides relief of physical, emotional, and spiritual pain and suffering. This study shows that patients requesting euthanasia may be in depression and the physician’s calling is not to prompt the anxious and depressed to shrivel up and die but to give of themselves, to reach out with compassion, love and sensitivity, working diligently with other professionals and the patient until emotional pain is relieved. This is the dignified way to manage psychological distress. Once treated, the patient often begins feeling that life is worth living. Once a patient is comfortable, physically and psychologically, death is not desired and the person gets on with living.

When physicians, like those in Holland, are not versed in easing pain and dispensing palliative care, society pays the price. With killing as the solution to pain in the Netherlands, there is no incentive to treat the pain.

The solution to physical and psychological suffering is not licensing the physician to kill individuals victimized by it. The solution, as this study points out, is to enable individuals to live with dignity throughout the natural dying process. Compassion is offering pain-control and the treatment of depression. It is saying I am going to do everything that I can to make you comfortable, conscious, and alert until you do die. I am not going to hasten your death or postpone it. I am going to relieve your physical pain and treat your depression. This palliation, not euthanasia, is the compassionate, caring solution.

Mom suffered intense pain. She was ALWAYS lucid – she knew what was happening at all times and was at the mercy of her care givers.

1. At the UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

   Mom would say “MY BUM IS BURNING – MY BUM IS BURNING. PUT SOME VASELINE ON IT.” The pasty stool would eat away at the tender area in the crease. Can you IMAGINE the intense pain she suffered!
   The nurse would say “JUST LEAVE HER FOR 10 MINUTES AND SHE’LL FORGET ABOUT IT.”

   This is care? This is ABUSE! My sister and I would do our best to clean her and put some vaseline on her to stop the burning.

2. At NORWOOD Care Center – care givers were AWARE mom had two frozen shoulders that were very painful – but they would always yank these shoulders when they were turning her.
   Mom would holler “OW – OW – OW. WHY ARE YOU HURTING ME? WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN?”
   The care giver’s reply was – “BECAUSE I’M A BITCH.”
   Mom replied “ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE BITCHES OUT OF ALL OF US?”

   Another time when mom said OW-OW-OW – the care giver said “WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS SAYING OW-OW-OW!”
   Mom replied “BECAUSE I’M IN PAIN.”
   The care giver’s said “I’VE SEEN PEOPLE DIE WITH MORE PAIN THEN YOU HAVE.”
   Mom replied “DO YOU WANT US ALL TO DIE?”

   Is this COMPASSION?? Empathy?? What did mom do to deserve this?

3. At DR. GERALD ZETTER Care Center – mom SUFFERED MORE INTENSE PAIN. She acquired a bedsore (which ultimately contributed to her demise). This bedsore WAS ALLOWED to blossom from a superficial (looney size sore) on December 10 to a stage III rapidly progressing decubitus ulcer on January 2. Superficial areas spread across her buttocks for about 2 cm on either side of the ulcer. These ulcers are preventable! An ulcer of this nature is evidence of NEGLECT. LACK OF HYGIENE – NUTRITION – HYDRATION – POSITIONING – INFECTION CONTROL. THERE MUST BE INCREASED NUTRITION AND HYDRATION TO ALLOW FOR PROPER HEALING OF THE WOUND.
   She received neither proper hydration nor nutrition as well as insufficient positioning. We had to almost beg to have mom taken to an acute care hospital when we saw she was not well. The Dr. at Zetter center said MOM HAD A BUG AND THEY COULD GIVE HER ANTIBIOTICS AT THE CENTER.

   
   

   We INSISTED mom be taken to the University hospital.
   The diagnosis – mild heart attack, aspiration pneumonia, dehydration, and under feeding. The Dr. At the Unisersity hospital was SHOCKED at what he saw and told up this was “TOTAL NURSE NEGLECT.” If PROPER CARE had been given – mom would not have gotten this ulcer, and would PROBABLY BE ALIVE TODAY. This was the beginning of the end.
   We had her moved from this care facility. We went to the 3rd floor of the Zetter center to complain about the LACK of care mom had received while she was at this facility. We were advising them we were going to pursue this matter. We were taken to the 3rd floor administrator who told us that this was not the first time people complained. She indicated the facility would get a ‘slap on the wrist’ and it would be business as usual.

   WHERE’S THE ACCOUNTABILITY OF THIS FACILITY?

4. At the GREY NUN’S HOSPITAL – she was literally STARVED TO DEATH! Out of the 46 days she was in this hospital – SHE HAD LITTLE OR NO FOOD FOR 31 DAYS. It was either a plugged tube or TUBE FEED WAS PUT ON HOLD. Mom told us I FEEL WEAK – I’M HUNGRY.” She KNEW what was happening and was powerless. She was in their clutches!! THEY MADE THE RULES. We BEGGED for food. Mom was suppose to be on continuous feed so it was important that she have “continuous feed”. Feed was on hold Feb. 1, 2, 3 and on the 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19 there were problems with tube feed plugging therefore tube feed and medications on hold sometimes for several hours at a time. These problems were due to improper administration of medications.

   Her medications were not crushed properly and large chunks would block the tube and there were times when incompatible medications would be given at the same time which again would gel like concrete in the tube. All this of course equating to LACK OF NOURISHMENT. On Feb. 25, 26, 27, 28 tube feed was on hold and again on March 2-6, then again on March 9-19.

   MOM PASSED AWAY ON THE 19TH OF MARCH. SHE STARVED TO DEATH! People are uncomfortable when they haven’t eaten for a few hours. Can you IMAGINE NOT HAVING ANY FOOD OR WATER FOR 11 DAYS? Wouldn’t you be weak? Wouldn’t you be tired? CAN YOU IMAGINE THE DIFFICULTY YOUR BODY WOULD HAVE TO HEAL ITSELF WITHOUT NUTRIENTS! On February 8 the family was at the hospital to celebrate mom’s 89th birthday with her. She conversed, joked and had a few chuckles with us. She was ready to do this “again next year”. With all the pain and suffering she had endured – she was NOT READY TO DIE.

   As she once said “I’m a tough old bird.” The doctors take an oath FIRST DO NO HARM. Why was the order given to HOLD FEED SO OFTEN? This continual lack of food and water made her weaker and weaker. There was NO NOURISHMENT TO HEAL OR SURVIVE. Is this not considered HARM? At one time one of her doctors said “THIS COULD BE CONSTRUED AS MURDER” as he was contemplating withholding food.

   IS THIS ACCOUNTABILITY?????? IS THIS – DO NO HARM??? The Vatican said the decision to discontinue tube feed was “AKIN TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR SOMEONE WHO HAD COMMITTED NO CRIME”. OUR MOM COMMITTED NO CRIME – SHE DID NOT DESERVE TO DIE BY THE DECISIONS OF THE DOCTORS. THIS SHOULD BE GOD’S DECISION. SHE HAD A RIGHT TO LIFE!

5. WHY ARE THE DOCTORS ALLOWED TO BURY THEIR DECISIONS/MISTAKES WITHOUT BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE? THEY MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE! HOW CAN SOCIETY ALLOW THIS???
6. WHY ARE THE OPERATORS OF THE CARE FACILITIES NOT BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE ENTRUSTED TO THEIR CARE? THIS IS BIG BUSINESS. A LOT OF MONEY PASSES THROUGH THE HANDS OF THESE OPERATORS – WHERE IS THE CARE??? THEY MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!
7. ABUSE IS NOT “INTENTIONAL NEGLECT”. ABUSE IS WHEN HARM COMES TO A PERSON. IT APPEARS THE LAWS ARE SET UP TO COVER THIS ABUSE – THE LAWS ARE SET UP FOR “INTENTIONAL NEGLECT”. THE LAW MAKERS MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!
8. WE HAVE CONTACTED CAPITAL HEALTH, CARITUS HEALTH, SEVERAL MLA’S, PROTECTION FOR PERSON’S IN CARE, HEALTH FACILITIES REVIEW COMMITTEE – to mention a few. The results were LESS THAN ADEQUATE. WHERE IS THE ACCOUNTABILITY?
9. I SPOKE WITH A LAWYER AND WAS TOLD THEY WOULD NOT WORK ON A PERCENTAGE BASIS AS I WOULD NOT LIKELY WIN. IT WOULD APPEAR THE LAWS ARE SET UP TO PROTECT THE ABUSERS. WHERE ARE THE LAWS TO PROTECT THE VICTIMS? DO THEY NOT HAVE RIGHTS? THERE MUST BE ACCOUNTABILITY TOO MUCH ABUSE IS HAPPENING NO ONE IS BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE. WHY???????

by Candis McLean

In Canada, animals are treated better than seniors, according to Irene McNeilly of St. Paul, Alta., 100 miles northeast of Edmonton. She is angry because of treatment her husband received in St. Therese Hospital in St. Paul, prior to his death March 19. It was not only “callous and degrading,” she alleges, but possibly ended in euthanasia. If so, it is just part of an alarming trend, according to those who work with the elderly and infirm.

Keith McNeilly, 79, a native of Grenada, had worked most of his professional life in rural Alberta. “His deep Christian faith enriched his service to his fellow man in a very profound way,” recalled colleague Dr. Joseph Fernando in his eulogy. “He was a very generous and charitable man, and he never refused help when help was asked of him.” In recognition of his service to the Catholic Church and his fellow man, Dr. McNeilly was knighted in 1992 by the Order of the Holy Saviour and St. Brigitta of Sweden.

Trouble began last September when Dr. McNeilly was rushed to University Hospital in Edmonton after suffering a stroke. Paralyzed on one side, he was alert but unable to speak. “The young female doctor was brutally frank with me,” Mrs. McNeilly recounts. “Standing at his bedside, she said, ‘He is 79 years old. Because of his past medical history I will not recommend any drugs for his treatment. They are too expensive to healthcare.’ I said, ‘I will pay for them,’ but she said, ‘There is no point. This is a major stroke and he’s not going to recover anyway.’ He knew what was going on; he held my hand so tight and tears rolled down his face. These people are so rude. I worked with him 16 years; he always used to tell me, ‘Don’t tell the patients there is no hope. It is God who decides.’”

When Dr. McNeilly was moved to St. Therese Hospital, Mrs. McNeilly says, the staff seemed “rather negative and uncaring,” as if he were “one of the many old men who had become useless and undeserving of the decent treatment befitting a human being.” For 11 days, she documents, he became weaker as he was given intravenous liquids only; “no tube-feeding of nutritious food.” Finally given tube-feeding, he later pulled the tube out.

When Mrs. McNeilly pleaded with staff to replace it, she was told “the hospital had run out of tubes,” but was ordering some in. Two days later she called the hospital at 7 a.m., pleading for tube-feeding before she spoke to her lawyer. By 8 a.m. a tube had been inserted.

Released in November, Dr. McNeilly was readmitted in March to St. Therese Hospital with double pneumonia; antibiotics and morphine were administered. When his condition improved, Mrs. McNeilly was puzzled about the continued doses of morphine since it slows the heart, but was told it was “doctor’s orders.” “I was constantly with him, day in and day out, as I was scared of the morphine and alerted [by a nurse urging, during his first hospital stay, 'Just pull the tubes out and let him go.']” Mrs. McNeilly slept in a room adjoining her husband’s with the door open so she could check on him during the night.

“On March 19 at 6 a.m.,” she reports, “my fears were confirmed that strange and unexpected things had happened. I found my door closed, although I had left it open. I heard Keith groan, as he did when he wanted me. I heard footsteps going back and forth. Alarmed, I got up and found my door closed. Then a nurse with ‘Mercy’ on her name tag opened my door and said he had just gone. She said, ‘We washed him, gave him morphine and ventilin, and he’s gone.’ I was terribly shaken and cried. There was no oxygen mask on him and this puzzled me. I questioned them why the door was closed, why the morphine was given again without my permission, but no reply from them whatsoever.”

Mrs. McNeilly has lodged a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Allan Sinclair, manager of health services with Lakeland Regional Health Authority which is also investigating, says he has no knowledge of any euthanasia ever practised in the region. The Elder Advocate of Alberta, Ruth Adria of Edmonton (elderadv@telusplanet.net), says that if the case does prove to be euthanasia, it will not be the first she has seen documented; in fact, she has charges in process. Far more common, however, she says, is euthanasia by failure to feed or hydrate.

“Institutions literally don’t want to spend the dollars on the care. Everyone knows it’s going on, but it has to be articulated: when people can no longer feed themselves, they are left to starve.” On May 10, Ms. Adria distributed in the Legislature a pamphlet on elder abuse seeking enforceable laws similar to those in the U.S. with fines of $1,000 per day for weight loss, malnutrition or bedsores.

Mrs. McNeilly’s priest, Father Anthony O’Riordan, says he has also known “a lot of instances of deliberate neglect where people are starved and dehydrated to death. A utilitarian ethic is taking over,” he says. “If life is not convenient, take it. It’s alarming, but pretty well hidden.”

Originally published in: The Report Newsmagazine (no longer published) May 28, 2001

Federal Judge Michael Hogan ruled that Ballot Measure 16, adapted by a small majority of Oregon voters in November 1994, violates the equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The state of Oregon appealed this ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals, which earlier ruled that there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide.

Depression, a remedial condition, is the leading cause of suicide. The court found that Ballot Measure 16 did not equally protect such terminally ill persons.

Other problems with Ballot Measure 16 according to the courts, are:

• That a physician without psychiatric training is relied upon to screen patients whose judgment is impaired by depression,
• That “there is no independent oversight for the decision and implementation of an assisted suicide request by medical professionals, i.e., review by a probate court, as there is with civil commitment,”
• That physicians assisting patients to kill themselves need only meet a “good faith” standard of care in diagnosing a patient as terminally ill and prescribing a lethal substance, while physicians in other contexts are held to the “highest standard of medical care.”

Even if these “constitutional flaws” are removed, the court appears to hold that Measure 16, state sanctioning of assisted suicide, is unconstitutional. Judge Hogan stated, “it is noteworthy that the Declaration of Independence refers to life as ‘inalienable,’ presumably a benefit that cannot be easily waived or forfeited.” The court stated, “tort law and criminal law have never recognized a right to let others enslave you, mutilate you, or kill you, even with your consent.”