Thread: AS BOOMERS AGE, RIGHT TO DIE MAY SEEM LESS WRONG

AS BOOMERS AGE, RIGHT TO DIE MAY SEEM LESS WRONG

By Logan Jenkins12:01 A.M.APRIL 30, 2014

Over the weekend, the wife and I sat around the dinner table with fun-loving desert friends and, over the dregs of a bottle, talked about drugs.

Not the mind-blowing, but the final-exit kind, the lethal hedges against a warehouse existence long on tubes and absent of hope.

One woman said her son-in-law, a doctor, had promised to give her the good stuff. She said she’d share (but that might have been the wine talking).

The banter was looping in my brain Monday as I met with Faye Girsh, a Harvard-educated psychologist who for nearly 30 years has devoted her formidable talents to the right-to-die crusade.

An ACLU board member in the early ’80s, Girsh was called to evaluate a quadriplegic woman who wanted to die by refusing to eat or drink. The case became an ACLU cause celebre that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. During a 1986 right-to-die forum Girsh organized in San Diego, Hemlock Society founder Derek Humphry’s speech turned on a bright light.

Girsh quickly founded San Diego’s chapter of the Hemlock Society and for six years served as president for the national society (now named Compassion & Choices, an antiseptic title she scoffs at).

An 80-year-old grandmother who survived two husbands, Girsh is the current president of San Diego’s independent Hemlock Society and (among other advocacy roles) a senior adviser of the Final Exit Network, a controversial organization that advises grievously ill people on “the art of self-deliverance,” in Humphry’s phrase.

So-called “exit guides” inform, but do not physically help, a sick person wishing to die. In many cases, the guides remove helium bottles, tubing and “hoods,” or plastic bags, after the event. (Many people want to spare loved ones the stigma of suicide, Girsh explained.)

All told, Girsh estimates, some 350 Americans have adopted the final-exit strategy since the inception of the network, itself an offshoot of a program Girsh initiated when she was the Hemlock Society’s national president.

Except in Oregon, Washington and Vermont, states where legislatures passed assisted-death regulations, the law of the land is slowly evolving. In Montana and New Mexico, recent court decisions offer hope that doctors will not be prosecuted if they hasten death. But exit guides run a risk of prosecution. To many in law enforcement, there’s a blurry fine line between advising and assisting.

“Sure, we all worry,” Girsh said of her network’s elderly volunteers. “We don’t know if we’re being set up.”

How social trends have changed in the past 20 years.

In the early ’90s, death-with-dignity, as a political movement, was hot, far ahead of homosexuality and marijuana.

In 1992, for example, early polling showed California’s Proposition 161, a right-to-die initiative, passing. However, a well-funded push by religious groups tipped opinion.

About the same time, Humphry published “Final Exit,” a runaway best-seller that, among other end-of-life counseling, instructed people how to self-deliver. Bursting on the scene at the same time was Jack Kevorkian, the notorious Dr. Death.

“My hero,” Girsh said with a nostalgic smile.

In the virtual blink of an eye, however, same-sex marriage has been legalized in 17 states. Twenty have approved medical marijuana and two states — Colorado and Washington — have cleared weed for all adults.

Meanwhile, assisted-dying initiatives recently came up short in Maine and Massachusetts. I asked Girsh why homosexual rights have gained so much traction.

“We’re not anywhere as good as the gays,” she joked. “We’re old, weak.”

Old bodies, maybe; weak argument, no.

If you ask Americans if lives of terminal patients should be ended painlessly upon request, nearly three-quarters approve.

If you include the word “suicide” in the question, however, it’s about 50-50.

If that hitch in logic is ever resolved, graying boomers won’t sit around talking about stockpiling silver bullets in the medicine cabinet.

Get the word suicide out of the equation and traditional prohibitions could soften around the margins.

Girsh recalled a woman, a cancer patient, whom she helped as an exit guide.

Though a devout person, the hospice patient decided God would forgive her letting go of pointless pain.

“She died with her Bible on her lap,” Girsh said.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/...em-less-wrong/

"Forced Exit"; by Wesley Smith

Available at Amazon:

Boomers have produced more money and income for the government than any other generation. Career politicians have spent that money with great abandon and have become accustomed to the amount of money they they were given to squander to keep themselves in office. Boomers paid into Social Security and Medicare for most of their working lives and now that the bill is due the answer is to start an all out campaign advocating their euthanasia and demonizing them as a burden. The bill is due and the answer is get rid of the debt holder.
Social Security has been raided by every agency that had a project that they wanted to fund outside of the normal legislative process and no has stepped up to stop them, Medicare funds Medicaid which is being spent on foreign nationals to come here a procreate . The government is robbing seniors that have paid into the system for their entire lives to pay for illegal aliens. JMO.

The Good Euthanasia Guide Derek Humphry


Freedom to die Derek Humphry


The Right to Die Derek Humphry


Dying with Dignity: Understa... Derek Humphry

"#1 New York Times bestseller Final Exit first published in 1991."

Final Exit Network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Final Exit Network logo

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until thedispute is resolved. (September 2013)

The Final Exit Network is an American all-volunteer organization that offers counseling, support, and guidance in a successful suicide to individuals who are suffering from an intolerable illness. The organization believes that individuals suffering from intolerable illnesses deserve a dignified death.^[1] The organization promotes the use ofliving wills, advance directives, durable powers of attorney for health care, and do not resuscitate orders, and advocates for individuals when their Advance Directives are not being followed.

Final Exit Network originated as the Hemlock Society, which later was renamed End-of-Life Choices. End-of-Life Choices merged with the Compassion in Dying Federation to form the currently existing group Compassion and Choices, whose efforts primarily promote legislative change. Some of the former Hemlock Society's leadership formed Final Exit Network, which focuses on providing compassionate support to the dying as opposed to promoting legislative change. Final Exit Network is a member of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies (and Compassion and Choices is not). Its current president is Wendell Stephenson.^[2] Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society, is a member of the Final Exit Network's advisory board, and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Final Exit first published in 1991.

The Exit Guide program of Final Exit Network provides compassionate support to many whom other organizations may turn away, accepting people with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Parkinson's disease,multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer's disease, congestive heart failure, emphysema,cancer, and other incurable illnesses. Final Exit Network conducts a rigorous review process and protocols to ensure that applicants for support in their "self deliverance" are suitable candidates and are not suicidal.

Final Exit Network was featured in "The Suicide Plan" (A Frontline (U.S. TV series)) on November 13, 2012.^[3]

Contents

[hide]

• 1 Jana Van Voorhis case
• 2 John Celmer case
• 3 References
• 4 External links

Jana Van Voorhis case[edit]

Jana Van Voorhis was an Arizona woman with a history of mental illness whose suicide was allegedly assisted by the Final Exit Network in 2007.^[4] Two members of the Final Exit Network were charged with aiding in a suicide (which is considered manslaughter under Arizona law) and conspiracy to commit manslaughter. Two others were charged only with conspiracy.^{[citation needed]}

Two of the defendants, Wye Hale-Rowe and Roberta Massey, both elderly and in poor health, pleaded guilty to minor charges in plea bargains that ensured they would not run any risk of being sentenced to a prison term. The trial of the other two began on April 4, 2011. After a two-week trial, Final Exit Network's medical director, Dr. Lawrence Egbert, was found not guilty by an eight-member jury.^{[citation needed]}

The jury was "hung" on the case against a volunteer "Exit Guide," Franklin Langsner. Before his retrial, scheduled for August 4, 2011, the State offered him a plea bargain "he could not refuse," he said. He pleaded guilty to a minor misdemeanor and was sentenced to one year on probation, following which his "record" would be expunged.^{[citation needed]}

Thus the State was unable to secure any conviction by a jury, and nobody from Final Exit Network pleaded guilty to assisting in a suicide, or to any felony charge.

John Celmer case[edit]

On February 25, 2009, four members of the Final Exit Network were arrested for allegedly assisting the suicide of a cancer patient, John Celmer, of Cumming, Georgia, a small town north of Atlanta. Those arrested were Ted Goodwin, Claire Blehr, Dr. Lawrence Egbert, and Nicholas Alec Sheridan.^[5] The organization, Final Exit Network, Inc., was also indicted on a racketeering charge.

Opponents of the right to die hailed the arrests. On the other hand, bioethicist Jacob M. Appel called the group "courageous"^{[6][not specific enough to verify]} and bioethics attorney William Colby of the Center for Practical Ethics questioned whether "trying to round up people in groups" was productive.^[7]

On April 1, 2010, the four Final Exit Network defendants pleaded not guilty to charges of assisted suicide, evidence tampering and racketeering.^[8]

The defendants moved to dismiss the indictment on grounds that the Georgia statute on aiding in a suicide is facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment. In early 2011 the trial court judge entererd an order denying the defendants' motion to dismiss the indictment. The judge entered an order authorizing the defendants to appeal this decision. On February 6, 2012, the Supreme Court of Georgiaunanimously struck down Georgia's assisted suicide law, deemed the statute unconstitutional, and found it violated 1st Amendment free speech provisions.^[9] The case was subsequently dismissed and Goodwin, Blehr, Egbert, and Sheridan were acquitted of the charges.^[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Exit_Network

Nazi Euthanasia Program

http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Othe...mbersStory.htm

"Since ancient times, when sickly children were left outside to die from exposure, euthanasia has been practiced, debated or condemned by various societies. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the debate over euthanasia took a new turn when it gained popularity among some doctors and lawyers. These advocates proposed that medicine play a role in offering "dying help: to the suffering. Proponents of such an ethic unwittingly laid the philosophical groundwork for the massive euthanasia program that would take place in the late 1930s and early 1940s in Germany.

Although much of the same language and many of the same ideas used by early euthanasia advocates have regained popularity today, contemporary "right to die" activists shun any comparisons to Nazi Germany. Derek Humphry, author of Final Exit, maintains that the Nazi era is too "singular and unusual" to merit comparisons. Such statements fail to take into account the decades leading up to Nazi Germany or the emotional arguments and propaganda that were used to justify the euthanasia program.

Works such as Jost's Das Recht auf den Tod (The Right to Death) and Binding and Hoche's Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens (The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life) greatly influenced the German medical profession of the 1920s and 30s. In his book, The Nazi Doctors, historian Robert Lifton describes the latter work as "crucial" in creating acceptance among medical professionals for euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Published 13 years before Hitler took power, The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life proposed that "sterbehilfe," the German word for "dying help," be offered to the "incurably ill" and "lives in a condition of total helplessness, requiring care by another."

Professor Binding was one of Germany's leading experts in constitutional law and criminal jurisprudence. Dr. Hoche was a well-respected psychiatrist. The book explicitly stated the "sterbehilfe" must be voluntary. But the line between voluntary and involuntary quickly blurred in Hitler's Germany.

Arguments by early opponents of euthanasia mirror the arguments of euthanasia opponents today. Dr. M. Beer wrote in his 1914 book, Ein Schoner Tod: Ein Wort zur Euthanasiefrage (A Beautiful Death: A Word About the Question of Euthanasia):

"Once respect for the sanctity of human life has been diminished by introducing voluntary mercy-killing for the mentally healthy incurably ill...who is going to ensure that matters stop there?"

The pro-euthanasia movement of that time was not limited to Germany. As Robert Proctor documents in Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, support for legalized euthanasia was building throughout Europe and the United States. In 1935, a number of British physicians formed the Voluntary Euthanasia Legalization Society, headed by the president of the Royal College of Surgeons. That same year, French-American Nobel Prize winner Alex Carrel suggested in his book Man the Unknown that the criminally insane should be "humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasia institutions supplied with proper gas." W.G. Lennox, in a speech at Harvard University, advocated "the privilege of death for the congenitally mindless and for the incurable sick who wish to die." A 1937 Gallup poll found that 45 percent of Americans favored euthanasia for "defective infants." In fact, Nazi physicians cited American support for euthanasia in their defense at Nuremberg. American support for euthanasia sharply declined after the war.

Nazi propaganda films portrayed euthanasia as a loving and compassionate act. In the Nazi propaganda film, "I Accuse! (Ich klage an!)", a woman with multiple sclerosis asks her husband who is a doctor to permanently relieve her of her suffering. He agrees to give her a lethal injection of morphine while his friend (who is also a doctor) plays tranquil music on the piano. At his trial he argues that he committed an act of mercy, not murder. He is acquitted.

The situation depicted in "I Accuse!" is almost identical to Dr. Jack Kevorkian's murder of a woman with multiple sclerosis by lethal injection only a few years ago. Like the character in the film, Kevorkian's attorney used emotional arguments to sway the jury, and Kevorkian was acquitted. The only difference is that Kevorkian did not play music for his victim.

"I Accuse!" and similar propaganda films greatly influenced German public opinion. It is not surprising, then, that the first phase of the Nazi euthanasia program (titled Operation T4) actually began with parental requests for the "merciful deaths" of their severely disabled or ill children.

The Third Reich soon set up a commission to establish criteria for euthanasia candidates. Those who qualified included children under the age of three suffering from "idiocy and mongolism (Down syndrome), microcephaly, hydrocephaly, malformations and paralysis." The child program eventually led to the adult euthanasia program and Hitler's edict that "Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are hereby commissioned to allow certain specified doctors to grant a mercy death to patients judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination."

Operation T4 excluded Jews. Third Reich officials believed that the Jews did not deserve the "benefit" of euthanasia. It was considered too compassionate and humane.

In fact, Nazi doctors justified the euthanasia program on grounds of compassion when defending themselves at Nuremberg. The words of Dr. Karl Brandt, who headed the program, sound strikingly contemporary:

"Do you think that it was a pleasure for me to receive the order to permit euthanasia?...It is a pity for the incurable, literally. Here I cannot believe like a clergyman or think as a jurist. I am a doctor and I see the law of nature as being the law of reason."

This same "law of reason" is at work today in the Netherlands, where euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are both legal and common. The Dutch government's own research has documented that in more than 1,000 cases a year physicians actively cause or hasten death without the patient's permission.

IN an effort to ensure that the Nazi euthanasia program was carried out in a painless manner, Nazi medical staff at hospitals such as Hadamar originally killed patients by lethal injection. They eventually switched to carbon-monoxide gassing, however, as the program expanded. In the end, more than 75,000 "patients" were killed under Operation T4.

When Operation T4 switched over to gassing, Nazi officials made what they considered a useful discovery -gassing was an efficient form of extermination. After the euthanasia program was officially suspended in 1941 (although lethal injections continued throughout the war), the gassing equipment at Hadamar and other hospitals was dismantled and transported to Treblinka, Auschwitz and other death camps in preparation for the Final Solution."

When some people freely choose to seek out a way to avoid the unnecessary pain and suffering at the end of their life some others try to pretend that they are being force into it or tricked into it. But we know that's BS.