Monthly Archives: March 2017

It has been said that if a fence is built around something, one should learn why the fence is there before dismantling it. For thousands of years, in virtually every culture, a legal fence has prohibited euthanasia and treated it as homicide.

Current trends indicate a willingness to dismantle this protective fence, picket by picket, fueled by the desire for patient self-determination, death with dignity, and the right to control the time of death.

The first picket for which removal is advocated is to allow someone to voluntarily choose death and have someone else administer it. What harm would there be, the argument goes, if the choice is freely made, strictly regulated, and achieves a good end namely, relief from suffering or choosing ones own time?

Perhaps you are persuaded by this reasoning. It is important for you to understand why this rationale is flawed and puts many vulnerable people at risk.

Shouldnt euthanasia be legal if a patient freely requests death?This argument might seem reasonable to you. Supporters of euthanasia argue that the right of a competent patient to make medical treatment decisions should include the right to request and receive death by lethal injection.

There are dangers, however, even when patients are allowed to freely request euthanasia:

Could we just legalize voluntary euthanasia and stop there?The answer is clearly NO for legal, moral and practical reasons.

Legal:Courts all over the United States have already moved from recognizing the right of competent patients to refuse medical treatment to granting that benefit to those unable or unwilling to make the decision for themselves. The same legal principles would apply if voluntary euthanasia were available. For example, if a person not in pain can request and receive a lethal injection, then how can a request be denied to a person with mental retardation perceived to be suffering? The law will not allow such an inequity to stand.

Moral:If killing a person because he or she is suffering is morally justifiable, then it is equally moral for someone else to make the decision for a person who is incapacitated and unable to do so.

Practical:Did you know that doctors in Nazi Germany killed up to 250,000 people who were deemed unfit? These doctors added more and more people into the unfit category, including those with mental retardation, mental illness, epilepsy, and bed wetters. The experience in the Netherlands has been the same. This country initially approved only voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide which rapidly developed to include family members making death decisions for those who are incapacitated. The Netherlands recently adopted guidelines allowing parents to consent to direct killing of newborn infants with disabilities.

Shouldnt euthanasia be available for people who are in pain?No one wants to be in pain or see their loved ones in pain. This is a very real fear you may have. Fortunately, we live in a time when medicine has made great strides to manage pain. It is important to have a medical team who understands how to relieve pain.

The Wisconsin Cancer Pain Initiative has been working for many years to teach medical professionals how to relieve pain. Please clickhttp://aspi.wisc.edu/wpi/to visit their web site.

The Alliance of State Pain Initiatives (ASPI) has an excellent booklet with information for patients on how to discuss pain symptoms with their doctor. The booklet can be found atwww.aspi.wisc.edu/CPCBR.htm.

In Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, the most important reasons people report for requesting suicide is not pain but loss of autonomy and fear of incapacity. We hope after reviewing this information that you will not use pain as a reason to support euthanasia.

What other reasons are promoted for using euthanasia? Make no mistake: while proponents of euthanasia sell the act by talking about people who are in severe pain, they have no intention of stopping at pain or even terminal illness.

A professor from Brown University, Jacob M. Appel, wrote in the May-June 2007 issue of the Hastings Center Report that assisted suicide should be available to people who suffer from repeated bouts of severe depression. This concept is finding support among mainstream commentators who favor assisted suicide, calling it rational suicide. They reason that mental suffering can be just as great as physical suffering so people should be able to avail themselves of death to relieve an unbearable life of mental suffering. These same arguments can be applied to euthanasia.

This rationale is known as the slippery slope. Once you open the door for killing of patients for one reason, it is nearly impossible to limit the right to that one circumstance. Jack Kevorkian, a Michigan doctor who assisted in the deaths of over 130 people, helped people to kill themselves even if they were not dying. In the Netherlands, legalized euthanasia for terminal illness has been followed by recognition that it is needed for mental illness. The Netherlands has also extended the euthanasia right to newborn infants with disabilities.

How would people be affected if euthanasia is legalized?You and your loved ones will certainly be affected. The practice of medicine would change because healing and killing would become equally valid goals of the medical profession. If death becomes a legal right, doctors will feel obligated to offer death as an option to all of their patients.

Those at risk of being killed without consent or against their own wishes would become fearful of seeing a physician, being hospitalized, or entering a nursing home. You would view medical professionals and even your own family members with suspicion, fearing that they will choose death by lethal injection without your consent or even against your wishes.

Who opposes legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia?The driving force in opposition to legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide has been medical and disability rights groups. The American Medical Association has an official position in opposition to legalization. Disability rights groups are opposed because they recognize that people with disabilities are potential victims of these practices.

In California, state and national Latino organizations worked with a coalition to defeat the proposed assisted suicide law there.

Right-to-life groups and major church denominations also worked to defeat these measures.

For more information on euthanasia, please visitwww.nightingalealliance.org.

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Euthanasia Wisconsin Right to Life - wrtl.org

Students for Life of America is not merely working to stop abortion in this country, we defend all innocent life from unnatural systematic termination. Euthanasia is an increasingly urgent problem in the United States now so more than ever for a number of reasons:

Euthanasia is a term coming from the Greek for good death, which can mean anything from the acceptable comforting the dying to the deceptive and immoral so-called involuntary euthanasia for, as the Euthanasia Society of America (later renamedwww.worldrtd.net/)put it, idiots, imbeciles, and congenital monstrosities.

Generally, we may define it as the intentional ending of a persons life, through direct action (called active euthanasia) or by omission (called passive euthanasia) usually motivated by a mercy for those in great pain or suffering from a terminal illness[3].

Both euthanasia and abortion are based on a view of man that lacks dignity. Pro-lifers view all life as precious, whether it is that of the elderly, the mentally ill, or even the preborn. Pro-lifers recognize that life is an inalienable right before and regardless of state recognition. Those who call themselves pro-choice view life as notinherentlyvaluable, but as a value given to a human being from a human source such as the government (quality of life, etc.).

Voluntary Euthanasia vs. Involuntary Euthanasia

Voluntary euthanasia is also known as assisted suicide. In such cases, the individual no longer wants to live and enlists the help of a medical professional in either killing them or allowing them to die (ceasing treatment, etc.). The most famous example of assisted suicide is that of Dr. Jack Kevorkianskillingof 130 people, 5 of whom[4]had no disease detected in autopsy. Kevorkian served eight years in prison for second-degree murder.

Asinvoluntarymercy-killing is so obviously repugnant to most people, the most controversial form of euthanasia isnon-voluntarythat is, when the individual is not able to give or deny consent, the most famous example of which is the case of Terry Schiavo.

Terry Schiavo

In 1990, at the age of 26, Terri Schindler Schiavo suffered a mysterious cardio-respiratory arrest. To this day, doctors have still not discovered a cause for this respitory attack. She was diagnosed withhypoxic encephalopathy neurological injury caused by lack of oxygen to the brain and was placed on a ventilator. Terri was soon able to breathe on her own and maintain vital function. She remained in a severely compromised neurological state (a persistent vegetative state[5]) and was provided a PEG tube to ensure the safe delivery of nourishment and hydration. Terri alive was kept alive by assisted feeding[6]of food and water, the same things which keep us all alive.

In March of 2005, Terris family fought a court order her husband had filed to pull her feeding and hydration tubes. For 13 days her family with the pro-life community battle the courts in vain. On March 31, 2005, Terri Schindler Schiavo died of marked dehydration following more than 13 days without nutrition or hydration under the order of Circuit Court Judge George W. Greer of the Pinellas-Pascos Sixth Judicial Court. Terri was 41.

1973- Prior to 1973, euthanasia was illegal in the Netherlands. However, when a doctor convicted of killing her terminally ill mother was sentenced to a week in prison, a precedent was set, and the courts gradually chipped away at the law, allowing for more exceptions to the rule; these exceptions included that the euthanizing must be voluntary and the patient must be terminally ill.

1975-The Karen Ann Quinlan caseeased the distinction between the right to choose ones own death and the right to choose anothers death.

1984- Guidelines for euthanasia were established in the Netherlands, including discussing the situation with the patient, family, and another doctor.

1985- Acourt in the Netherlandsdecided that patients no longer had to be terminally ill to request an assisted suicide.

1985- In the case ofClaire Conroythe debate moved from removing medical treatment, such as a respirator, to defining food and water as optional treatment instead of basic care.

1986- In California,Elizabeth Bouvia, an intelligent, alert woman completely dependent since birth because of Cerebral Palsy, asked for and was granted by the Court, the right to have the hospital assist her to starve to death comfortably. However, after winning in the courts, Ms. Bouvia changed her mind and decided she wanted to continue living.

1987-The New Jersey Supreme Court in the case of Nancy Ellen Jobesset aside the standard of clear and convincing evidence of the patients wishes, and substituted a standard of best judgment from the family. This case changed the focus from the benefit of care for Ms. Jobes to the perceived benefit of life itself as determined by others.

1988- Rhode Island was the first state to hear a food and water case in Federal Court.Marcia Grays case was based on the right to privacy arguments first articulated in the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion case.This established federal precedent for ordering health care providers to actively assist in carrying out a third partys desire to cause the death of a patient.

1989- The Missouri Supreme Court refused to allow the withdrawal of food and liquids to a severely impaired woman who was not dying.

1993- Criminal Charges were brought against Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who helped an Alzheimers victim commit suicide with a machine he invented. The charges were dropped because Michigan law did not specify that facilitating a suicide is criminal.

1995- By this time in the Netherlands, it was not uncommon for doctors to kill patients without their consent (active involuntary euthanasia), including babies born with birth defects. Also in 1995, the Northern Territories in Australia approved a euthanasia bill; though it became law in 1996, it was overturned the following year.

1995- The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the wife of a severely brain-damaged man could not remove his feeding tube. The U.S. Supreme Court later rejected the wifes appeal.

1998- The state of Oregon legalizes assisted suicide.

2001- A new (and current) law was introduced in the Netherlands with new guidelines: the patient must be informed, must consent, must consult with his or her doctor and conclude that there is no other reasonable solution, consult with an outside physician, the suffering must be intense with no hope of lessening, and the doctor must exercise due medical care and attention in terminating the patients life or assisting in his/her suicide (Q3A). Minors aged 12-15 may request to be euthanized, but there must be parental consent; minors 16 and older do not need parental consent (Q16A).

The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs cited loss of dignity as a reason for allowing euthanasia (Q1B). Euthanasia is still a criminal offence as of 2008, but if doctors report it and satisfy due care criteria, then they can be exempted from criminal liability and it will not be reported to the Public Prosecution Service (Q2A). The Ministry explains that the aim of exempting doctors from prosecution is to ensure that they no longer feel like criminals and can act openly and honestly in relation to requests for euthanasia, provided that their decision-making and medical procedures satisfy the statutory due care criteria (Q2B).

In response to objections that doctors ought to save and not end life, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that: A doctors main duty is indeed to preserve life. Euthanasia is not part of the medical duty of care. However, doctors are obliged to do everything they can to enable their patients to die with dignity. They may not administer pointless medical treatments. When all treatment options have been exhausted, the doctor is responsible for relieving suffering. (Q14A) (from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs website:http://www.minbuza.nl/binaries/en-pdf/faq-euth-2008-en-geupdate-020408-eng.pdf)

2002- Belgium legalizes euthanasia under many of the same guidelines as the Netherlands.

2005- On March 31, 2005,Terri Schindler Schiavo, aged 41, dies of marked dehydration following more than 13 days without nutrition or hydration under the order of Circuit Court Judge George W. Greer of the Pinellas-Pascos Sixth Judicial Court.

2006- InGonzales vs. Oregon, the United States Supreme Court upheld, in a vote of 6-3, an Oregon law (Death with Dignity Act) allowing patients to commit suicide with the assistance of their doctor. The court cited that the federal government could not override state law.

2008- An Italian court ruled that life support could be removed fromEluana Englaro, a young woman in Milan who has been in a coma[7]for sixteen years.

What you can do:

EducationIt is important that people understand their state laws as they relate to the withdrawal of ordinary provisions. Many laws have changed or have been amended in recent years and your current advanced directive (or lack of one) might be dangerous under the new laws. It is strongly recommended to all people to carefully read current state laws and to secure legal advice when considering them.

AdvocacyIt is encouraged for people to take proactive measures to ensure that their desires for ordinary care be observed. Considering a health care surrogate, a Protective Medical Decisions Directive along with a Will to Live Directive may be an excellent alternative to the traditional living will.

Community InvolvementThrough the internet, public awareness efforts and advocacy for the disabled and elderly, community involvement has a direct and positive impact. Becoming a volunteer is a good way to start.

Further reading: Catholic Education Resource Center Euthanasia Facts Georgia Right to Life: Court Decisions LifeIssues.net Euthanasia Library Medical Articles on Euthanasia PregnantPause on Euthanasia

http://www.terrisfight.org

[1]Life expectancy in the United States is currently 78.24, according to the CIA:https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

According to the BBC, average lifespan around the world is around double what it was 200 years ago. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1977733.stm

[2]The percentage of the population over 60 in the United States is projected to rise to 26% by 2040, from 16.3% today. Source: Brookings Institution, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Congressional Budget Office as cited byhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/daily/graphics/ss_020205.html

[3]Traditionally defined as an illness or condition that will cause a persons death within a relatively short time. Some state courts are expanding the term to include a condition in which death will occur if treatment, including nutrition and hydration, is removed.

[4]http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-14/health/kevorkian.gupta_1_kevorkian-dr-jack-euthanasia-assisted-suicide/3?_s=PM:HEALTH

[5]A condition in which the upper portions of the brain are damaged through disease or injury, but the brain stem is normal. Basic body functions such as breathing and digestion occur, and the individual has sleep-wake cycles. But these patients are not attentive, do not speak or have voluntary muscle movement.

[6]Nutrition that is provided with the help of another. This may be spoon-feeding, through a gastrotomy tube, or through a tube into the vein.

[7]A state of unconsciousness from which the patient cannot be aroused, even by powerful stimulation. This state rarely lasts for more than two to four weeks, by which time the patient dies, enters into a vegetative state, or regains some form of consciousness.

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Euthanasia | Students for Life

It was so predictable I predicted it.

Following Belgium and the Netherlands, Canadian MDs have conjoined euthanasia and organ harvesting before it was specifically allowed in Canadian law. From the National Post story:

Doctors have already harvested organs from dozens of Canadians who underwent medically assisted death, a practice supporters say expands the pool of desperately needed organs, but ethicists worry could make it harder for euthanasia patients to voice a last-minute change of heart.

In Ontario, 26 people who died by lethal injection have donated tissue or organs since the federal law decriminalizing medical assistance in dying, or MAID, came into effect last June, according to information obtained by the Post. A total of 338 have died by medical assistance in the province.

Most of the 26 were tissue donors, which usually involves eyes, skin, heart valves, bones and tendons.

Allowing a person to consent to homicidewhich is what we are talking about herewith the intention of organ donation, puts great pressure on despairing people who can come to think that their deaths are more valuable than their lives.

Even worse, society can come to see such people as so many organ farms too.

We are watching the most brutal and awful things transpire with barely a peep of protest.

Well, I will: Suicidal people need suicide prevention, not the implied encouragement of allowing their killing to be conjoined with organ procurement.

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Canada Conjoins Euthanasia and Organ Harvesting | National Review - National Review

Ken Palmer, Lansing State Journal 8:49 a.m. ET March 21, 2017

Under Michigan law, it's legal for police to have sex with prostitutes during an undercover investigation. Wochit

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FBI Director James Comey says the FBI and Justice Department have no information to substantiate President Donald Trump's claims that former President Barack Obama wiretapped him before the election. (March 20) AP

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President Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, faces senators for his confirmation hearing, with Democrats immediately casting him as a threat to civil liberties and social progress. Video provided by AFP Newslook

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Detroit police officials speak to the media after they say a 72-year-old man was killed in a traffic accident involving human trafficking investigation. Robert Allen, Detroit Free Press

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Henrik Zetterberg, Tomas Tatar and Jeff Blashill talk Monday at Joe Louis Arena after the Wings' 2-1 loss to the Sabres. Video by Helene St. James/DFP Videolicious

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Isaiah Livers of Kalamazoo Central accepts the Michigan Mr. Basketball award on Monday, March 20, 2017, at the Detroit Free Press. Video by Mandi Wright / DFP

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'Sesame Street's' newest Muppet is Julia, a 4-year-old with blazing red hair, bright green eyes, and autism. She's been in Sesame Workshop print and digital illustrations for more than a year, and makes her TV debut April 10 on both PBS and HBO. (March 20) AP

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Authorities raided a building in southwest Detroit on Saturday as part of an investigation into cockfighting and illegal gambling. Wochit

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Sam Kell's love for basketball is matched by his family's and community's love for him and his courageous fight Detroit Free Press

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Freep Film Festival will feature nearly 20 regional and world premieres over four nights starting March 30 to April 2, 2017.

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iPhone inventories fell month over month to just under four days from five days in January, according to Pacific Crest Securities. Video provided by TheStreet Newslook

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Washington correspondent Todd Spangler talks about Donald Trump's budget plan and what it means for Michigan. Todd Spangler/Detroit Free Press

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Cops would lose immunity for sex with prostitutes under new bill

Comey: No info to support Trump's wiretap tweets

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Watch: Isaiah Livers accepts Mr. Basketball award

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Authorities raid cockfighting operation in southwest Detroit

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Freep Film Festival coming March 30-April 2

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Iraq War veteran Allen Hustin embraces one of his two dogs. A judge ordered that both dogs, along with another canine, be killed after they were found inside a pen with three dead goats.(Photo: Courtesy photo)

IONIA - Major, Marioand Luigi are on canine death row.

The three dogswerefound inside a pen with three dead goats last July in Ionia County, and a judge ordered that they be killed.

But their owners, including an Iraq War veteran who relies on the animalsto calm and comfort him, say they have evidence that exonerates the dogs in the goats' deaths. And theyare asking another judge to spare the animals' lives.

"This is just one of those things where you scratch your head and say, 'how is this really happening in our state,'" said Lansing attorney Mary Chartier, who filed a brief in support of the families on behalf of the State Bar of Michigan's Animal LawSection. "They just dont want to admit that a mistake was made. It's troublingthat thisprosecutor refused to do that."

Ionia County Prosecutor Kyle Butler said he is simply enforcing the lawand that the dogowners had their day in court

"Cases like these are unfortunate all around," Butler said in a prepared statement. "Nobody wins in a case like this."

The case appears to be pittingIonia County Animal Controlagainst Butler's office, which prosecuted the case based on a complaint filed by the agency.

Read more:

Michigan firefighters rescue, revive dying dog

Firefighter adopts dog after finding owner deceased

Ionia County District Judge Raymond Voet ordered the dogs be destroyed after a hearing in late July, nearly threeweeks after the dogsescaped from a backyard and were later found inside the pen with the dead goats. A dead cat also was found on the premises.

Family members later learned that an investigation by the county's animal shelter manager showed the dogs didn't kill the goats, their attorneys said. The manager determined the dogs found their way inside the goat pen long afterthe goats had died.None of the dogs had any blood on its fur or collar, indicating they could not have killed the goats, she said.

The shelter manager, Robin Anderson, also said thedogs were friendly and hadshown no signs of aggression toward humans or other animals.

"It was never my opinion or the opinion of the Animal Control officer that these dogs should be destroyed," Andersonsaid in an affidavit dated both Aug. 2 and Oct.13. "If Ifelt in any way that these animals were a danger to the public I would have no problem euthanizing them because public safety, above all else, comes first.However, I do not feel that way in this case."

The owner of the goats and cat initially told animal controlstaff that he didn't want to press charges but later indicated he wanted the dogs destroyed, according to the affidavit. The dog owners were cited for allowing their animals to run at large and for causing damage, itsays.

Ionia County Circuit Judge Ronald Schafer affirmed Voet's rulingduring a Jan. 20 appeal hearing. Schafer confined his review to the facts presented at trial and didn't find any errors in the proceeding, attorneys for the dog owners said.

Also read:

Too many air passengers fly with phony support pets, critics say

Two of the dogs pit bull-mixes named Mario and Luigi areowned by Allen Hustin, of FortBragg, North Carolina, a U.S. Army veteran who served two tours of duty in Iraq and received the Purple Heart for injuries received in the conflict, attorneys for the families said. The dogs were recommended to him by a veterans group to help him cope with trauma, they said. He and his wife, an active service member stationed overseas, were visiting family in Ionia when the dogs got loose last summer.

The third dog - Major - is owned by Hustin's mother-in-law, Susan Owen.Attorneys said the dogs escaped from the yard through a hole in afence caused by a lawnmower.

Mario and Luigi are in county custody. Major also was being held at the shelter but is now missing. The Ionia County Sheriff's Department is investigating the dog's disappearance, Butlersaid.

Until recently, the dogowners had represented themselves in court.Clarkston attorney Celeste Dunn and Grosse Pointe Farms attorney David Draper stepped in on their behalf after the appeal to circuit court failed. Dunn is donating her time.Draper is receiving some limited compensation from animal welfare groups.

They are asking Schafer to dismiss the case or grant anew trial, alleging important information was withheld from the trial judge. The court has the powerto correct a "manifest injustice," Dunn said.

"This court can go beyond that (district court) record and say, 'there is a wrong here that needs to be corrected,'" she said.

A hearing is set for Wednesday morning, she said.

Butler said his office didn't withhold any information in its possession at the time of the hearing.

He said the owners of the dogs submitted evidence, questioned witnesses, testified on their own behalf and called a witness who does shepherd rescue work.

Butleralso noted that his office is one of the few in the state that has a canine staff member to help crime victims, primarilychildren, feel more comfortable during court proceedings.

"However, despite the strong, positive emotions that our office has towards dogs, our office is also charged with the duty to enforce the law," he said in the statement. "In this case, the law was enforced, the accused had their due processand the judge ruled in accordance with the law."

Contact Ken Palmer at (517) 377-1032 or kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.

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Iraq War vet fighting in Michigan court to save dogs from euthanasia - Detroit Free Press

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Euthanasia 'Elephant In The Room' - Healthcare Costs - Scoop.co.nz (press release)