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Archive for the ‘Choice Becomes “Duty” to Die’ Category

Health April 2015 As They Lay Dying Two doctors say it’s far too hard for terminal patients to donate their organs. Joshua Mezrich and Joseph Scalea Mar 16 2015, 8:25 PM ET http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/as-they-lay-dying/386273/ Thanks to Alex Schadenberg and Wesley Smith for pointing out an article in the Atlantic advocating a “right” for patients to decline […]

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Many Vermonters would be stunned to learn that some eighty years ago, our legislature passed a law enabling the sterilization of Vermonters who had been determined to be “undesirables,” people from targeted groups that included Abenakis and French Canadian immigrants. The 1931 sterilization law was designed to reduce the number of people seen as placing […]

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The dumbest appeal people make for legalizing assisted suicide is that we put animals down when they are suffering.  This constantly comes up in the comments to online articles, and we have also heard it in testimony from people who should know better. Some people do put their pets down out of compassion, but many […]

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There was good news in Canada this week. A court ruled that a woman with dementia’s acceptance of spoon feeding in a nursing home indicates a current desire for nourishment that overrides her advance directive’s statement that such feeding not be provided. This is a victory for the right to change one’s mind, even if […]

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The Vermont Senate Health and Welfare Committee heard testimony on Wednesday on Act 39. The two questions being examined: “Is Act 39 working?” and “Should the sunset provisions in Act 39 be repealed?” Testimony was heard from a dozen people, nearly all of whom acknowledged that there are problems with the law, including the lack […]

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People Magazine has published an article about a man who writes that his wife’s last week was so traumatic to him that he believes Brittany Maynard gave her husband “a gift” by committing suicide. We wouldn’t dream of linking to this sick justification of selfishness. The article is clear evidence of how far down the […]

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Ezekiel Emanuel has spent his life building an impressive resume and now, at age 56, he wants the world to know that by 75 he plans to stop working so hard. In fact, he says that if he is still alive at 75, his master plan is to “stop all medical treatment” with the goal […]

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