• Home
  • Videos
  • Signup for Emails
  • What You Can Do
  • About True Dignity
    • About the Board
    • Contact Us
  • Links
  • Report Abuse

True Dignity Vermont

Vermont Citizens Against Assisted Suicide

Suicide is never death with dignity, and assisted suicide legislation threatens true patient choices at the end of life.

Feeds:
Posts
« A Deep and Tragic Irony: In VT Lawmakers Praise Suicide Prevention Efforts While Legally Enabling Suicide
Our Tax Dollars at Work: Prettifying Suicide and Ignoring the Vulnerable »

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Are Contagious

 

February 15, 2015 by Administrators

Linked at the end of this post is a very balanced article about euthanasia and assisted suicide: how they are spreading in Europe, how Canada, with last week’s court decision, is poised to follow, and how the US is trending in the same direction.

It clearly describes the dangers , at least some of them.  We wish it had explained more clearly how putting the final decision about who gets to die in the hands of doctors or any other person inevitably leads to deaths that are not freely chosen.

It is easy to see that euthanasia does that, but people think assisted suicide leaves the final decision to the patient.  It does not.  In the first place, doctors decide who gets the lethal prescriptions.  In the second, the laws in the US do not provide any oversight at all over what happens after a person fills the prescription.  Six months or more later, when the drugs are used for suicide, there is no re-evaluation of competency.  There is no disinterested witness required at the death.  There is not even a requirement that the person self-administer the drugs; the laws only say they are intended by the prescribing doctor for self administration.  Before Patrick Matheny committed suicide with drugs legally obtained for that purpose, in 1999, he gave an interview to the Oregonian in which he stated that he feared waiting too long, until his ALS had progressed to the point at which he could not commit suicide on  his own.  In the end, according to his brother in law, he did wait too long.  Though the brother in law, who was alone with Matheny when he died, went public with the fact that Matheny could not swallow the drugs and that he had “helped” get them into him, refusing to describe what he had actually done, he was not prosecuted.  Email [email protected] for a copy of the interview, which we had to purchase from the archives of http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian,.  It appears that Patrick Matheny’s brother in law got away after making a public announcement that he had committed euthanasia, here in the US where it is illegal.  Also when people who are for assisted suicide write us, they inevitably talk about how they wish they could have put their suffering loved ones down the way we put down pets, though we don’t just do it with suffering pets but also with ones that are inconvenient for us.  That folks, is not assisted suicide.  It is euthanasia.  Euthanasia is what the proponents want, and they may not be too far off the mark in thinking that is what they are getting with these assisted suicide laws.

Our question is, “Did Patrick Matheny, at the last minute,  say, as we have heard that one of Jack Kevorkian’s patients said, “Wait”?  Were his final wishes, like Kevorkian’s patient’s, not heeded?  No one will ever know.

And, as the article says, euthanasia is contagious.  We think that’s just fine with the proponents, but the prospect should be enough to jolt those who oppose this but done nothing to stop it out of their apathy.

Apathy also kills.

http://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/20/choosing-die-netherlands-euthanasia-debate-306223.html

Share this:

  • Click to email this to a friend
  • Share on Facebook
  • Click to share on Google+
  • Click to share on Twitter
  • More
  • Click to print
  • Click to share on Tumblr
  • Click to share on Reddit
  • Click to share on Pocket
  • Click to share on StumbleUpon

Related

Posted in Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide Contagion, Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide Two Sides of the Same Coin | Leave a Comment



  • facebook  YouTube-social-squircle_red  Twitter
  • Menu

    • Home
    • Videos
    • Signup for Emails
    • What You Can Do
    • About True Dignity
      • About the Board
      • Contact Us
    • Links
    • Report Abuse
  • Stay Active!

    • Get Action Alerts Emails
    • Make Calls
    • Write Letters
  • Stay Informed!

    • Join our email list
  • Vermont Government

    • Governor Peter Shumlin
    • Lt. Governor Phil Scott
    • State Reps By District
    • State Senators By District
    • VT Legislative Directory
  • Article Categories

    • Ablism (2)
    • Acceptance of Unintended Consequences (5)
    • Action Alert (3)
    • Administrative (4)
    • Agism (4)
    • Alerts (24)
    • Animal euthanasia argument (4)
    • Board (1)
    • Brittany Maynard (1)
    • Canada (3)
    • Canada Supreme Court (1)
    • Cheapness of Assisted Suicide (4)
    • Choice Becomes "Duty" to Die (11)
    • Chronic Diseases Rendered Terminal by Non-treatment (3)
    • Classism and Assisted Suicide (5)
    • Colorado (2)
    • Commentary (27)
    • Compassion and Choices (7)
    • Conflict of Interest (3)
    • Connecticut (2)
    • Connecticut (2)
    • Connecticut (2)
    • Conscience Rights (1)
    • Cost Cutting Agenda of Barbara Coombs Lee (2)
    • Countering the PAS lobby (1)
    • CT (1)
    • Damage to Family (3)
    • Damage to Helpers (1)
    • Death with Dignity (3)
    • Defeats in other states (7)
    • Depression (7)
    • Devaluation of Lives with Disabilities (33)
    • Disability Rights Groups' Opposition (30)
    • Doctor's Power (2)
    • Dying with Real Dignity (1)
    • Editorials (5)
    • Elder Abuse (22)
    • Election 2014 (3)
    • Error Possibility (2)
    • Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide Contagion (3)
    • Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide Two Sides of the Same Coin (8)
    • Exemption options (4)
    • Expansion of Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia (14)
    • Georgia (3)
    • Germany (1)
    • Healthy people helped to commit suicide (2)
    • Language manipulation (3)
    • Legal Opinions (7)
    • Legislative Efforts in Other Countries (3)
    • Legislative Efforts in Other States (9)
    • Legislative Testimony (1)
    • Letters to the Editors of Newspapers (13)
    • Letters to the Legislature (2)
    • Maryland (1)
    • Massachusetts (3)
    • Medical Opinions (18)
    • Medical Power (5)
    • Medical Societies (4)
    • Montana (2)
    • Moratorium (2)
    • Murder Invitation (2)
    • Nevada (1)
    • Nevada (1)
    • Never Investigated (1)
    • New Jersey (5)
    • New York (1)
    • Not a Peaceful Death (4)
    • Oregon (4)
    • Other Countries (2)
    • Other Countries (1)
    • Other States (7)
    • Other states (4)
    • Out of State/General (10)
    • Palliative Care (6)
    • Personal Stories (5)
    • Pharmacists (6)
    • Polls (4)
    • Pro Assisted Suicide (1)
    • Prognosis Inaccuracy (2)
    • Racism and Assisted Suicide (1)
    • Randy Brock (1)
    • Rationing (3)
    • Reasons to Oppose (3)
    • Rejections of Assisted Suicide in Other Countries (3)
    • Rejections of Assisted Suicide in other states (5)
    • Relatives Won't Know (3)
    • Religious "movement" (1)
    • Repeal Effort (4)
    • Richard Doerflinger (1)
    • Selfishness of Proponents (3)
    • Selling of Suicide (5)
    • Silencing Opposition (2)
    • Slippery Slope (23)
    • Suicide Contagion (20)
    • Suicide Increase (9)
    • Suicide Tourism (3)
    • Talking Points (2)
    • Testimony before non-VT legislative bodies (3)
    • Transparency Lack (1)
    • True Dignity (22)
    • Uncategorized (347)
    • Unused Drug Dangers (1)
    • Unworkability if Regulations Attempt to Make AS "Safe" (1)
    • Updates (1)
    • US (1)
    • Vermont (12)
    • Vermont (5)
    • Vermont Alliance for Ethical Health Care (4)
    • Vermont Governor (4)
    • Vermont Legislature (61)
    • Videos (24)
    • Vote Count on Passage (4)
    • Vote Results (5)

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.