Maggie Karner Connecticut Fund

This post is to counter Britanny Magnard's Fund found on the internet and You Tube.  It is a statement of a young woman, Maggie Karner, from Connecticut, who wants to fight for every moment of her life.  She should get equal billing.

  So the 10 million of you who have seen Britanny's web site/You Tube video should also see Maggie Karner's.  Even the letter Maggie drafted out you can partially see it, in her words. The family being together at the end of life which is what every person who dies wants.  Maggie's father wants his family to be cohesive and loving and the extra time allotted to forgive and get to know each other again..The pain of the body is nothing. 

We live in a ghastly world why can't we be allowed a Norman Rockwell death. 

By allowing the elderly and the chronic to live it creates work (taxes) paid by employees and for medical supplies so what is the rush to hasten their deaths.This is a viable industry. Soon we will not have a medical industry like the manufacturing industry which is destroying North America. I do not think we can outsource near dead bodies.

More money is paid on lotteries than is paid for the care of the elderly and those in chronic care. What cost is three more months of life.

To see Maggie Karner's video connect with Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International News and Information.and listen to Maggie's letter to Brittany October 30 2014.  It would be something if these women would join forces for life.  info@epcc.ca, 1-877-439-3348 Alexander Schadenberg

Family Institute of Connecticut, 77 Buckington Street, Hartford, Ct./ 1-800-548-006

Margaret  Dore, Choice is an Illusion: 10001 4th Avenue #44 Seatle Washington 98154 1-206,223,1922

Ron Panzer, Hospice Patients Alliance, 4680 Shank Street, NE, Rockford, MI 49341, 616-866-9127

Compassion and Choices and its affiliates have spend millions of dollars on convincing Americans that they have a right to die even convincing state governments to allow death for those who are not productive (DNRs)..They have made a multimillion dollar industry for themselves (a make work project killing people)  .Biomedics is unethical.  It is another word for cost accounting. Sick people are not $commodities. Scarcity of medical resources can/has been created to allow rationing of care which in turn forces sleath euthanasia.

 Maggie Karner now has a YouTube video: A letter to Brittany Maynard.


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25 October 2014

I attended an all candidates meeting this afternoon.  I discovered the CEDAR civic party and I would ask that you vote for them.  During the years I contacted all the other political parties to help me with my banning from Vancouver Coastal Health.  I never heard anything from them.  I suggested to CEDAR that the city could use moral suasion to ensure that no one gets banned from a facility in Vancouver unless there is a court order.  One of the candidates said he was a lawyer and that he had a client that was banned and he understood the problem.  I told him that banninig isn't just for one or two individuals; it was a serious problem which is not documented.  The only way not to be banned is to show up only at Christmas for ten minutes and also make sure your first language is not English. 

I read the platform for the CEDAR civic party and I would vote for it and so should you. There is no other alternative except to vote for the candidates that are independent.

Some light news....

CNN Opinion dated October 14 2014 The danger of assisted suicide laws by Marilyn Golden


"At less than $300, assisted suicide is, to put it bluntly, the cheapest treatment for a terminal illness."

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Will Euthanasia become normalized or are we already there.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Margaret Somerville: Should Canada permit assisted suicide.

This article was published by the Globe and Mail on October 15, 2015 as one of two articles comprising a debate between Margaret Somerville and Arthur Schafer.

Assisted suicide leads to normalization of euthanasia, harms the vulnerable and degrades our respect for the value of human life.

Margaret Somerville

By Margaret Somerville:

Euthanasia and assisted suicide go beyond personal ethics to involve social ethics. Advocates frequently resort to a personal story, often that of a suffering relative, to explain their stance. They avoid asking the question, “What does it say about a society that deals with the big problems of human existence by legalizing the ‘quick fix’ of inflicting death?” Such a society is abandoning the great philosophic traditions of Western civilization. Everything now depends only on majority opinion and technological capacity.

Moreover, euthanasia differentially implicates the most vulnerable members of a society. We can’t judge the ethical tone of a society by how it treats its strongest, most privileged, most powerful members, but by how it treats its weakest, most vulnerable and most in need.

The strongest case for legalizing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is at the level of the individual person, such as Sue Rodriguez or Dr. Donald Low, whose heartbreaking pleas for euthanasia rightly move us.

But we must also consider where such legalization would lead and what its impact would be on other people, the institutions of law and medicine, and the foundational values of society. And we must take into account, not just its impact in the present, but also in the future. Ask yourself: “How do you not want your great-great grandchildren to die?” As current reports from the Netherlands and Belgium, where euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal, show, euthanasia will be normalized and we will see an exponential increase in its use in ever broadening circumstances. That is, slippery slopes are unavoidable.

Initially, claims are made that euthanasia will be used only in rare cases on competent, consenting, dying adults who are in unrelievable pain and suffering. But these requirements don’t last. In the Netherlands, at least 4 percent of all deaths are by euthanasia and in Belgium on average there are five cases a day. It’s not rare. Children with disabilities can be euthanized (with their consent) as can those who are mentally, but not physically, ill or who wish to avoid future suffering. Belgium is currently debating euthanasia for people with Alzheimer’s Disease. Euthanasia is now so normalized only extreme cases make the media, such as two very recent ones, a prisoner who received euthanasia for unbearable suffering caused by imprisonment and an old lady who chose euthanasia instead of a nursing home, which she dreaded.

People are afraid to accept palliative care or necessary pain management because they fear euthanasia. We must be able to reassure them that we will kill their pain, but never intentionally kill them and we can’t do that if euthanasia or assisted suicide are legalized.

Seeing death as an appropriate response to suffering raises serious problems with respect to suicide prevention in general. It establishes suicide as an appropriate response to suffering. And society’s agreement to help elderly and vulnerable persons to kill themselves or to allow physicians to kill them sends a powerful message that their lives are not worth living. State-sanctioned suicide and euthanasia ask not that we attempt to preserve life -- the normal role of medicine and the state -- but that we accept and act communally upon a person’s judgment that his or her life is unworthy of continuance and become complicit in ending it.

And legalized euthanasia is abused. Just as we don’t report driving through a red light, doctors and nurses acting outside the law don’t report those cases. Abuse of old people with euthanasia is especially likely and should be seen as a major public-health threat. The combination of an ageing population, scarce healthcare resources and euthanasia is a lethal cocktail.

Confusion is used to promote public acceptance of euthanasia: Concealing language such as the euphemism “medical aid in dying.” An Ipsos marketing survey showed 60 per cent of 1000 Quebecers did not understand that this phrase meant a lethal injection and 40 per cent of just over 2000 Canadians did not comprehend that euthanasia meant that. Similarly, the “no difference” argument that assisted suicide is only an incremental extension of rights to refuse treatment that result in death promotes euthanasia through confusion. There is a radical difference between allowing a natural death to occur and killing a person.

This debate involves a clash of the values of respect for life and respect for individual autonomy. Anti-euthanasia advocates give priority to respect for life, pro-euthanasia to respect for individual autonomy.

But all societies in which reasonable people would want to live need to uphold respect for both each individual human life and for human life in general. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms affirms this for Canada. And legalizing euthanasia would harm the ability of medicine and law to carry the value of respect for life, as they must do for a secular society.

Just as we now realize our actions could destroy our physical ecosystem and we must hold it in trust for future generations, we must also hold our metaphysical ecosystem — the collection of values, principles, beliefs, attitudes, shared stories, and so on that bind us together as a society —likewise, in trust for them. That requires that we reject euthanasia, but always react to pain and suffering with deep compassion and assistance to relieve it -- that we kill the pain and suffering, not the person with the pain and suffering. That requires that everyone who needs it receives good palliative care. At present at least 70 percent of such Canadians have no access, which is appalling and a serious breach of ethics.

Might, however, the strongest argument against euthanasia relate not to death, but to life? That argument is that normalizing euthanasia would destroy a sense of the unfathomable mystery of life and seriously damage our universal “human spirit,” especially our capacity to find meaning in life, that which makes life worth living.

To legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia is not an incremental change. It’s a seismic and radical change in one of the most important values on which our society and civilization is founded, respect for human life and its protection. We must employ our ethical imaginations to appreciate that and act accordingly.

Margaret Somerville is the founding Director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University and professor in faculties of Law and Medicine

Posted by Alex Schadenberg at 10:36 AM  
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Ebola, Ebola, Ebola, the tragedy of Ebola

The tragedy of Ebola in Texas is to my believe which I verily believe to be true is that the health care professionals and customs officials are so lazy that they do not read the newspaper or listen to the news. 

I was always amazed when I asked a question of a health care professional at George Pearson Centre and/orVancouver General Hospital how unknowing and arrogrant they were.  "I don't read the newspapers, I do not care what is going on, and what did Tanu say ... she doesn't have to worry as she is public servant and nothing will ever happen to her."

Each day all health care professionals and entry customs people in every country should be forced to do a touchscreen multiple choice test before they are even allowed on hospital or airport property.
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A good death is not guaranteed.

Assisted Suicide Cannot Promise Brittany Maynard a Good Death

October 9, 2014 by Administrators True Dignity Vermont 

Did you know that many assisted suicides experience complications? Assisted suicide is wrongly marketed to the public as a flawless, peaceful escape from suffering. It can be a painful and scary death. It can include gasping, muscle spasms, nausea, vomiting, panic, confusion, failure to produce unconsciousness, waking from unconsciousness and a failure to cause death

When I found Randy on November 18 2013 Randy was alone, scared and he did not want to die.  And yet there was an illegal DNR Order on him.  For some reason I was in control of myself and I called 911 and in the chaos that followed Randy was sent to VGH and he lived.  Otherwise GPC would have left him to die alone (without any palliative care) because of the DNR and the DNT Orders on him.  Those few minutes will live with me forever.  If that wasn't bad enough the whole scenario was repeated on December 26, 2013. This time there was an order to do not move Randy off GPC site and there were no instructions to phone the doctor on call.  If I wasn't there for those few minutes, I would have gotten a call in the middle of the night that Randy had died.

Like Ron Panzer said if you are targeted they (the medical community) will kill you one way or the other if you are chronic and non-productive if they ascribe to Stealth Euthanasia: Health Care Tyranny in America.:

 ..Just to remind, Randy was only 57. He had an accident resulting in a spinal cord injury and a trach.  He wasn't in pain enough to warrant euthanasia. I do not even know if he was in much  pain as they only gave him tylenol to lower his fevers. He only wanted to come home but the medical authority just threatened me that I would never see Randy again. They imprisoned him. On April 13 2014 Randy died from organ failures.  His immune system, his fragile body, couldn't fight off any more infections.

They knew he was dying and they won't let me be with him.  What monsters.  I did nothing to warrant such cruelty. How could they do that to my Randy.  His life had no meaning to them; there was no compassion; there was nothing.Who were they protecting.  None of these cry babies were taught to work under any stress or front time problems if there were any except those caused  by them..

As for the allegations against me a first year law student could deconstruct them to make VCH look vindictive, malicious and evil. The health facilities in BC are governed by bullies.






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Randy's 6 month anniversary of his death.

I am doing okay so far.  It is 13 minutes into the 13th of October, 2014.

Yesterday was a really bad day as I saw Randy everywhere. I so wanted him back. I was paralyzed with grief.

A woman at the Senior Centre said it took her four years to get over her husband's death and she didn't even like him.  So it might seem that I still have 3.5 years to go.

I still do not understand how Vancouver Coastal Health allowed us to be so victimized. A system of policies which they do not follow unless it suits them.  Even the direction of the chair, Kip Woodward was disrespected.  I suspect Kip was convinced by the government that if he quit the Board it would tarnish the reputation of the government and its health system and Randy and I were expendable. They gambled that no one would take any notice of us.  

The individual means nothing; only what is good for the government.  The majority that is made up of tax paying citizens who believe that they will be treated fairly.  .

Randy so wanted to live.  He would try his very best to get better.  I remember in 2012 after St. Paul's gave him a passey muir speaking valve so he could speak and they surprised me when I attended at Christmas and I heard Randy say  he loved me.  It was a whisper but it was an audible whisper.

GPC should have been exercising his vocal cords but they didn't.  I suspect the cuts were part of Ostrow's mean management policy. Yes, it was called mean management.

But when Randy was returned to George Pearson Centre against his will and mine, I fought to have him remain at St. Pauls.  St. Pausl said I had no proof that GPC wasn't safe.

 GPC took away his talking valve not because Randy could not handle it but because VGH screwed up (staff can't read instructions) and three patients died while using them. Of course that wasn't the reason GPC used on Randy, it was that Randy's secretions were too heavy.  Not true.

Randy always said I was stupid so can someone tell me why Moira Stilwell, MLA for Langara, would tell me when I spoke to her in January 2014 not to picket GPC.  She asked me what I was going to do about the banning and I said I wanted to picket.  She said do not do that.  I do not know why she would tell me not to do a legal protest but then at that time I was so demoralized I could hardly find my shoes in the mornings.  Even now I still feel like picketing GPC with a sign that GPC banned me.  The use of the property is for patients and their families, so VCH telling me that they have the right to ban me if they want as it is private property doesn't sound right. I did not have $200,000 to fight the system nor did I have a powerful support network. The media and the support advocacy groups support did not come to by aid. 

Randy was so angry with the RTs that he would not allow them to suction him or change his trach.  Randy was so stubborn.  He allowed the floor nurses to do it.  Randy said he won't allow the RTs to touch him until he got his passey muir valve back again. The RTs were very upset over Randy's refusal to have them touch him.  How deceitfully cruel VGH was.

Death Panels: When Bureaucrats in Canada Decide Whether You Live or Die

by Wesley J. Smith | LifeNews.com | 10/3/14 3:09 PM

Medical futility disputes often involve the question of harming the patient. Family/patient believe they should decide what constitutes “harm” in these cases, and that for the patient/family, the greatest harm would be death.  Hence, they insist that efficacious treatment to extend life continue–as the way to avoid harm. That is, after all, a fundamental purpose of medicine when staying alive is wanted.

Bioethicists and some doctors believe that they get to decide what constitutes “harm.” Thus, if a patient is unlikely to recover or ever lead a “meaningful” life, they insist on being able to stop wanted treatment.

Religion is also a large factor in many of these situations. The secularist view sees suffering as the worst harm. Many religions, particularly more traditional approaches to Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism, differ. Thus, forcing treatment to cease is often viewed as disrespecting freedom of religion.

At the same time, many futilitiarians believe in judging “harm” on a macro level. They look beyond the patient to perceived emotional harm to the family–and the morale of the reluctant medical team–as well as financial harm to society by “investing” resources on the patient supposedly more wisely spent elsewhere.

So who gets to decide the meaning of “harm” in a particular situation–the patient/family or the technocrats?
Canada has established a bureaucratic board to make these decisions when doctors/bioethicists and patients/families disagree. From the Toronto Star story:

In Ontario, intractable, life-and-death disputes between physicians and patients’ families sometimes end up before a unique provincial body charged with wading into complex issues of medicine, ethics and faith. The little-known Consent and Capacity Board (CCB) — the only one of its kind in North America, perhaps anywhere — is a working laboratory for the most pressing issue facing Canada’s healthcare system: the end of life.
When a physician’s treatment proposal is challenged by a family member whose loved one can no longer communicate their wishes, doctors can make an application to the CCB. The Board then convenes a hearing within seven days, often in hospital board rooms, headed by a lawyer, a public member and a medical professional, typically a psychiatrist.
The panel’s job is a mix of legal arguments and character analysis. It must ultimately determine an incapacitated patient’s “prior wishes” or “best interests.” The panel must then issue a binding order within 24 hours of the hearing’s conclusion — a remarkably fast and economical process relative to the courts.

It seems to me that these futility cases are so relatively few and far between that coercion should rarely–if ever–be used.

These are subjective decisions. Establishing bureaucratic boards would sow mistrust for the system
 and validate the concept of “death panels.”

And talk about the potential for abuse of power. Why should strangers to the patient be given so much authority,in effect, empowered to impose their values over those of the family?
No. Education and continual mediation should be the watchword. Doctors should be brutally frank about the consequences of continuing care. But barring very rare circumstances, the patient/family should have the final word.

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism. 

I just read another report saying that the Consent and Capacity Board is flawed ... so there is no safeguards.  I will link it when I find it.

Your comments to Moira Stilwell, MLA, Vancouver-Langara moira.stilwell.mla@leg.bc.ca

When Does Suffering Begin

Quebec euthanasia law a bad precedent

By Farzana Hassan, Toronto Sun

First posted: Thursday, June 12, 2014 06:28 PM EDT | Updated: Thursday, June 12, 2014 06:33 PM EDT

Article

The inescapable problem with any human being’s decision to end his or her own life is that the action is irreversible.
Of all the arguments against euthanasia, this for me is the most compelling.
Granted, many people endure situations that appear to be hopeless, where death will be the inevitable end for someone who is already suffering pain and anguish.
But on rare occasions such situations are resolved without the finality of euthanasia.
Diagnoses have been reversed. Patients thought to be terminally ill or near death have regained their health.
Sun News Network reported this week on the recovery of an eight-year-old British girl named Claudia Burkill, who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer three years ago.
It is therefore baffling the Quebec National Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in favour of euthanasia.
Of course, Quebec MPs nominally voted to legalize “Medical Aid in Dying”, as the vague and disingenuous language of Bill 52 terms it.
Everyone knows euthanasia has now been legalized in Quebec.
The federal government has called it such and there is no way to disguise the decision with euphemisms.
Euthanasia legislation in countries like Belgium, whose model Quebec seeks to emulate, has taken their citizens down a dark path.
Two deaf Belgian twins were euthanized after they learned they would also go blind.
A 44-year-old man, who underwent a sex change operation, chose death because of “unbearable psychological suffering” after the surgery went awry.
It’s feasible that psychiatric counseling and medication could have helped this individual emerge from such a depressed state.
The original purpose of euthanasia was to relieve dying patients of unbearable physical pain.
It has now been expanded to include people opting to die because they cannot cope with psychological problems.
To consider death as the answer to all of life’s burdens is not a healthy trend for any society.
A death cult seems to be emerging in countries where euthanasia has been legalized.
Advances in medicine and psychiatry offer the prospects of relieving many types of physical and mental hardships people face in future.
An irreversible decision to die deprives individuals of the opportunity to face their psychological problems and, with help, overcome them.
How can a euthanasia law ensure patients won’t be pressured into it by others, even if they are well-intentioned, for which there is no guarantee?
Perhaps it may become the appropriate and loving thing to do for an ill and elderly parent whose children stand to gain an inheritance, to make a tidy exit with no fuss.
In this way, choosing death can become the norm — even expected.
The Quebec law allows doctors to end the life of patients with “incurable disease, incurable illness which is causing unbearable suffering.”
This is too broad a statement, and contains great scope for abuse.
Chronic back pain could be considered an incurable disease.
The sufferer may mention the possibility of euthanasia at some low point and eventually be pressured into going through with what started as a mere wish the pain would subside.
Laws have been put in place to protect such abuses in medical practice.
Let’s hope the federal government will challenge Quebec’s euthanasia law as unconstitutional.
It runs counter to the medical philosophy of doing no harm.
Its intention of curtailing pain is noble.
However, at the very least, it deprives people of hope, and runs the risk of normalizing voluntary death.
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