http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/foreigners-do-not-understand-us/11505

http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/foreigners-do-not-understand-us/11505

Please link to this article about  Dr. Cohen-Almagor.  It  argues what is wrong with euthanasia in Belgium.  Dr. Cohen-Almagor initially was for euthanasia but after researching it over decades he has come to the conclusion that euthanasia should not be legalized.

To my readers please send this link to your doctor.  It is the doctors in Canada who can refuse to be part of this assault on human life.

It was published August 1 2015.

California has it Right : No doctor assisted suicide (euthanasia).

Saturday, August 1, 2015

California Prohibition Against Assisted Suicide is Constitutional.

Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

A California trial court has upheld the constitutionality of that state's criminal statute prohibiting assisted suicide, which states:

Every person who deliberately aids, or advises, or encourages another to commit suicide, is guilty of a felony.

Penal Code § 401

The court's reasoning is contained in a 19 page "Ruling on Demurrer," filed on July 24, 2015. The ruling uses the term, "Aid in Dying" to mean physician-assisted suicide.  The term also means euthanasia. The court states in part:

Since "Aid in Dying" is quicker and less expensive, there is a much greater potential for its abuse, e.g,, greedy heirs-in-waiting, cost containment strategies, ímpulse decision-making, etc. Moreover, since it can be employed earlier in the dying process, there is a substantial risk that in many cases, it may bring about a patently premature death. For example, consider that a terminally ill patient, not in pain but facing death within the next six months, may opt for “Aid in Dying”' instead of working through what might have been just a transitory period of depression. Further, "Aid in Dying" creates the possible scenario of someone taking his life based upon an erroneous diagnosis of a terminal illness illness, which was, in fact, a mis-diagnosis that could have been brought to light by the passage of time. After all, doctors are not infallible.

Furthermore, "Aid in Dying" increases the number and general acceptability of suicide, which could have the unintended consequence of causing people who are not terminally ill (and not, therefore, even eligible for "Aid in Dyíng") to view suicide as an option in their unhappy life. For example, imagine the scenario of a bullied transgender child, or a heartsick teenaged girl whose first boyfriend just broke up with her, questioning whether life is really worth living. These children may be more apt to commit suicide in a society where the terminally ill are routinely opting for it, The message society needs to send to children must be that suicide is not an option for them; widespread "Aid in Dying," i.e., assisted suicide, may blur that message to immature minds. ('When grandma was in pain and dying, she just committed suicide. Why shouldn't I? My life is s-o-o-o painful."). Even though suicide (as opposed to assisted suicide) ís legal in California, the State has an important interest to ensure that people are not influenced to kill themselves," (Donaldson, at p. 1623.)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for youth between the ages of 10 and 24, suicide is the third leading cause of death claiming almost 4,600 lives each year. A nationwide survey of youth in grades 9-12 in public and private schools in the United States found that 16% of the students had reported having seriously considered suicide. (CDC website, March 10, 2015)

Ruling on Demurrer, pp. 8-9..

audreyjlaferreire, 5976 Cambie Street, Vancouver, B.C. audreyjlaferriere@gmail.com 604-321-2276
Ccommunicate with Prime Minister Harper and tell him to veto the Euthanasia court decision. Prime Minister Harper, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario.  K3A 086 To email in search bar type in "contact Prime Minister Harper" to use his web page.  Thank you.

Vomidtoid

 

Watch the video.  Is this happening in Canada as well. What about body parts soon to be euthanized February 6 2016.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

5TH VIDEO RELEASED SHOWING PLANNED PARENTHOOD WILLING TO SELL INTACT ABORTED BABY BODIES

A new 5th shocking video of Planned Butcherhood Parenthood harvesting fetal parts has been released, a day after Democrats blocked a vote to defund this barbaric organization. They currently receive $500,000,000 dollars annually from the U.S. federal government. That's half a billion dollars each year that could be going to provide real prenatal health care as well as mother and newborn care and services by a legitimate life-affirming organization.

Below is the fifth video showing discussions with a very willing Planned Parenthood official about obtaining intact dead babies they call "specimens". horrendous! Absolutely horrendous! Remember the Democrat Members of Congress, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton staunchly support Planned Parenthood. Remember this during the upcoming Presidential election. Get rid of the Democrats. They are unfit to govern.

[WARNING: GRUESOME DISCUSSION AND VISUALS IN THE FOLLOWING VIDEO. For those readers who can stomach the shocking material, click on image below or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egGUEvY7CEg . The glass tray of baby parts can be seen from 14:13-14:21. If you pause the video at 14:18, you can clearly see in the collection of fresh fetal parts, a baby's left arm in the upper right of the tray and a baby's right foot inn the lower left of the tray.


http://www.humanlifematters.org/2015/08/5th-video-released-showing-planned.htm

Posted by Mark Davis Pickup at 10:04 PM

Are DNRs used inappropriately.

I still can't get over how words are used as in the Daily Advocate March 31 2015 by Hugh Scher: The new description of medical murder is "inappropriate conduct." He also states that there are abuses to DNRs and these abuses must be corrected. My Randy died on April 13 2014 and I miss him terribly. Why did they ban me from his bedside. How cruel and barbaric they are. Like all bureaucracies they do not care about patients, only process and how they can twist process to protect themselves.

The above from my Facebook page.

Why euthanasia should be illegal.

Read this:  It is because doctors cannot be trusted.

http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/foreigners-do-not-understand-us/11505

Dr. Cohen-Almagor said that saving money was not the issue in Belgium to euthanize.  Research provided indicated that beneficence is often the guiding principle.  Physicians wish to ease patients' suffering and to ensure a relatively comfortable death.  Maybe this is true in Belgium as it is a liberal state but in a money oriented country such as ours it seems to be the opposite. Follow the money.

I keep remembering Dr. Ostrow's "mean management" protocol evidenced by signage on the hallways walls of VGH so even the public was able to read them.  He sure did not mean saving toilet paper.  The brightest of the bright knew exactly what he meant and the rest would accept the saving the toilet paper scenario.  Dr. Ostrow was the CEO of Vancouver Coastal Health.  He also moonlighted with organ transplants. I used to call Ostrow "Napoleon" and his girl, Josephine (the new CEO).
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I am very frustrated this afternoon, I have been trying to give Randy's "Owen" the little doggie terri-poo, a bath and each time I say to him let's go for a bath.  He runs and hides under heavy furniture and I have to find where he is with a flashlight and he won't come out of his space.  I had to cancel an appointment as I won't take him there, although they are dog friendly, without him being washed with his doggie soap that smells so nice.

We have been doing this doggie game for two hours now.  I will not lie to him.  As soon as I say "bath" he runs under a table, then a chair, then into his house "a large long dark willow basket" on its side top covered with an Afghan and the inside upholstered with pillows and a small fan. I need a flash light to see if he is there. I am going to have to start  to video him.  He is so cute and he has  perfect pearl white teeth. He is so healthy.  Not too long ago a male acquaintance tried to be friendly with me and Owen got in between him and I and showed his teeth.  The human decided to leave never to be seen again. 

I made an appointment with Trish, his groomer, next week and he listens to her.
 

A tale of my life.  No one listens to me.
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Mein Kampf Is One of the Bestselling Political Books of the Year

One benefit of eBooks is that you can purchase and read them anoynmously—there are no nosy clerks or shaming book covers to give away your terrible taste. This, as it turns out, is great news for Hitler's sales: the electronic version of Mein Kampf has become a surprise bestseller over the past year.

"These are things that people would be embarrassed to read otherwise," journalist Chris Faraone, who first noticed the trend, told ABC News. "Books that people would probably be a bit more embarrassed to read or display or buy in public, they are more than willing to buy on their Kindle, or iPads."

Faraone notes that eBooks led to a huge surge in sales for erotic novels like 50 Shades of Grey as well as more controversial books like Mein Kampf.

From Faraone's post on Vocativ:

For a year now, [Hitler's] magnum manifesto has loomed large over current best-sellers on iTunes, where at the time of this writing two different digital versions of Mein Kampf rank 12th and 15th on the Politics & Current Events chart alongside books by modern conservative powerhouses like Sarah Palin, Charles Krauthammer and Glenn Beck.

In fact, all seven of Beck's books trail Herr Hitler's nearly century-old tell-all, which consistently holds its own against new e-blockbusters like Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, This Town by Mark Leibovich, and Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise.

Versions of Hitler's prison screed also currently sit in third and fourth place on iTunes' Politics and Current Events bestseller list.

Of course, it's not clear if the book's popularity is because of a resurgence of academic curiosity or something more sinister.

"While the academic study of Mein Kampf is certainly legitimate, the spike in ebook sales likely comes from neo-Nazis and skinheads idolizing the greatest monster in history," World Jewish Congress CEO Robert Singer told ABC News.

But Michael Ford, the president of Elite Minds, an electronic publisher with a popular $0.99 version of Mein Kampf, disagrees.

"The popularity of the digital Ford translation of Mein Kampf has surged due to academic interest in the subject." Ford told ABC News in an email.

Who knows! The only thing for sure is that Mein Kampf is more popular now than most contemporary political books.

Who can get physician assisted suicide in Oregon

Under Oregon’s assisted suicide provision, the most recent official state report shows in the footnotes that a diabetic, persons with respiratory diseases, a person with viral hepatitis, and persons with HIV all obtained lethal prescriptions. These people are a far cry from those we envision as “terminally ill.”
Ann Cupolo Freeman, a board member of the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, explained some of the effects assisted suicide legislation could have on the disabled community. She said, “No assisted-suicide ‘safeguard’ can ever protect against coercion. In this era of managed care, will those living with a disability and the seriously ill be more likely offered lethal prescriptions in place of medical treatment? A prescription for 100 Seconal tablets costs far less than most medical treatments, especially considering the cost of long-term care for someone living with a disability.”

So much for Quality of Life Arguments (QOL)

Last Stand

Friday, 24 July 2015 | Print | Email

E. Wesley Ely

The first time I saw Jessa, she lay crumpled in the ICU bed, paralyzed, expressionless and unable to speak. A military veteran, she had fought in Desert Storm, but she now was facing a deadlier and more inexorable foe: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), aka Lou Gehrig's disease.

This disease causes progressive loss of muscle control, and Jessa was unable to speak, eat or breathe on her own. Her only means of communicating was through small facial movements--opening and closing her eyes or mouth, raising her eyebrows.

A dozen people made up her ICU team: three interns, three residents, a pharmacist, a nurse, a respiratory therapist, a social worker, a hospital chaplain and myself--the lead physician, or intensivist.

My intensivist mind, trained to seek solutions, skitters down a patient's problem list in search of answers. And Jessa's list was extensive: she needed a feeding tube, IV fluids, diapers and a special bed to prevent bed sores, antibiotics for a newly contracted pneumonia, intermittent sedation to ease anxiety and narcotics for chronic back pain.

But now, listening to the respirator pumping air into Jessa's lungs and felt her intense cobalt gaze on me, I saw one thing clearly: any concerns about antibiotics or nutrition took second place to a larger question.

"What do we know of Jessa's wishes about staying on a ventilator, now and in the coming weeks and months?" I asked the team when we stepped outside the room to confer.

"Her chart says that she wanted to be placed on a ventilator when she couldn't breathe on her own," said one resident.

"Look how long Stephen Hawking has lived that way," the nurse chimed in.

"I don't think we should look at someone else's life," another resident burst out, clearly frustrated. "She's suffering. I'd never want to live like this. She probably didn't know it would be this way when she requested life support."

I listened, having no strong opinion of my own as yet.

At that moment, Jessa's husband Zach walked into the ICU. We shared our concerns about Jessa's situation and asked him about her wishes.

Calmly, he replied, "Doctors, while it wouldn't necessarily be my choice, Jessa does want life support so that she can have as much time as possible with me and the people around her. She was raised to believe that all life, however frail, is sacred. It might seem paradoxical, but that was a key reason she joined the military--to defend life and freedom."

Later that morning, he shared his own wish: "Just make sure Jessa knows that she's not a burden, and that serving her is our privilege."

This conversation led to others over the next two weeks, and they sparked what I now see as a transformative period in my growth as a physician and in my understanding of patients like Jessa.

The next day, Zach told us more. "Jessa was born in Germany; she's bilingual. We've been married for twenty-seven years. We have no living children--we had several miscarriages. I'm all the family she has."

It had been Jessa's dream to serve as an American soldier. After they married, she enlisted and was deployed to Iraq as a diesel mechanic--one woman among over 1,000 men. "She got caught under a tank once and smashed her head getting out," Zach recounted. "They flew her to an army hospital in Germany, and she recovered and went back. She's tough as nails."

More than twenty years later, he said, she was diagnosed with ALS. "I've learned a ton from her about serving without concern for self," he added. "And now I'm learning even more. The amazing way she adjusts to whatever life throws at her....She's constantly recalibrating my vision of how to make the most of every moment. Like today, she's on that breathing machine, and she just smiled at me with her eyes."

In those few minutes, Zach revealed our silent, nearly motionless patient as a heroic person--someone I admired not only for her technological skills but for her pioneering attitude and resolve. I got an inkling of why she was fiercely holding onto the time she had left.

Still, some team members continued to see her quality of life (or QOL) as unacceptable. More than once, they called it "hellish."

When I told Zach this, he said, "Jessa once said she believes hell to be the absence of hope, just as cold is the absence of heat and darkness the absence of light. Now that you're getting to know her, can you see that she doesn't consider her illness hellish?" He whispered, "She's surrounded by love."

These discussions, as difficult as they were, marked a major shift in my understanding. I began to see how often I impose my own QOL standards onto patients--a fundamental clinical error.

Researching the empirical data, I learned that ALS and other "locked-in" patients often rate their QOL as acceptable despite their physical debility. Their focus shifts to less tangible qualities--transcendence, spirituality and security. Pondering this, I realized more and more clearly how, in this particular situation, it was Jessa's values and perceptions that mattered, not mine.

Our role, I saw, was to dive into the chaos of Jessa's life and offer her care and comfort despite our inability to cure her.

Over the next week, we worked with our palliative-care team to ease Jessa's pain, anxiety and delirium (which receded along with her pneumonia).

Every day, I made a point of remembering bioethicist Edmund Pellegrino's words: "Healing can occur when the patient is dying even when cure is impossible." With this in mind, I asked Zach if Jessa would enjoy being read to, as our team had done with other patients.

"Doc, she loves poems and the Psalms," he said immediately. We began to take turns reading to her every day.

On Jessa's last day with us before she was to leave for a long-term care facility, I chose Edna St. Vincent Millay's Sonnet XXX.

"Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; yet many a man is making friends with death, even as I speak, for lack of love alone...."

As I read, Jessa's mouth opened wide, in a smile brighter than any we'd yet seen from her.

The medical student across the bed from me began to cry. "From joy and amazement," the student later said.

Seeing Jessa's smile and the student's tears, I felt my mind stop in its tracks. Time stood still.

Jessa had lifted us above the physical realities of our existence and into something mystical. I can't explain it, and I almost don't want to try. Let's just say that she gave us a private treasure, one that I will always savor as a gift I never expected or deserved.

I squeezed Jessa's hands, holding her eyes with mine. Finally she looked away and up to the ceiling, and I stood in thought beside her.

Although my team and I loomed over Jessa as she lay in her bed, I knew that in spirit she soared high above us.


About the author:

E. Wesley Ely is a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and associate director of aging research for the Tennessee Valley VA Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Centers. He has authored more than 275 peer-reviewed articles. He and his wife, Kim Ely, a surgical pathologist at Vanderbilt, have three lovely daughters. His reflective writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine and elsewhere. "I got into writing as an outgrowth of being raised by a single mom, Diana Ely, who was an English teacher and director of Shakespeare. Without this form of reflective writing, I'd never be able to process the immense gift of being immersed in the lives of countless wonderful patients, each of whom has a unique story and path."