Palliation for Dying Undocumented Immigrants

Home: Palliation for Dying Undocumented Immigrants — NEJM: Sending dying patients to their homeland is nothing new. In fact, many palliative care teams in immigrant-heavy areas have started to provide this service as something tantamount to granting a dying wish.4 Sometimes patients themselves pay, but often funding comes through the patient's home government.

'via Blog this'

How to Get on Disability

How to Get on Disability - CarePages.com: Social Security and other types of disability coverage all have different application processes. Here’s what you need to know about how to apply for benefits.

'via Blog this'

How to give good gifts

Cancerquette Gift Guide Part II - What Helps. What Hurts. What Heals. - CarePages: This blogger has compiled practical tips for how to really help people with chronic or terminal illnesses.

'via Blog this'

Culture Making Amid Cancer: The Choices That Suffering Makes Possible

Culture Making Amid Cancer: The Choices That Suffering Makes Possible | This Is Our City | Christianity Today: "I was 27 and had just earned a master's degree in medicine from Yale, and was halfway through earning a master's degree in journalism from Columbia, on my way to becoming a famous health-care reporter in Manhattan. And then I went to my doctor because something didn't seem right, and a week later I got the confirmation: I had breast cancer.

"My pastor showed up that day, while I was sitting in my surgeon's office, waiting to schedule my bilateral mastectomy. He sat with me in a silence that he occasionally punctuated with a sentence or two. 'We all think the world of you, you know,' he said. I nodded.

"A few minutes later he added, 'Cancer's a gift that God only gives to special people.' I thought, I'm not so sure."

'via Blog this'

NDRN’s Report Should Serve As a Call to Conscience for Health Care Providers

Not Dead Yet News & Commentary: NDRN’s Report Should Serve As a Call to Conscience for Health Care Providers: The recommendations contained in the National Disability Rights Network's (NDRN) report, “Devaluing People With Disabilities: Medical ProceduresThat Violate Civil Rights,” constitute nothing less than a call to conscience for health care providers who are withholding life-sustaining treatment without consent from people with disabilities who are not otherwise dying. Sometimes this is done at the request of family members or other surrogates, who are often persuaded or even pressured by the health care providers themselves. Sometimes treatment is withheld based on the unilateral decision of the health care provider under what are often termed “futile care policies.”

What the NDRN report emphasizes is that people with disabilities are entitled to constitutional protections including 14th Amendment due process when third parties are seeking to withhold life-sustaining treatment.

'via Blog this'

Judging human worth

Judging human worth | LifeSiteNews.com: Some of the great civil rights battles of our day are being waged in Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii, and Montana this year. If you do not recognize those states as civil rights battlegrounds, you are not alone. While advocates for assisted suicide have targeted those states with legalization campaigns, residents may not fully appreciate what is at stake.

The connection between assisted suicide and the civil rights struggles of previous centuries is foundational. To claim that some human lives are not worth living is to deny the intrinsic and equal worth of every human being.

'via Blog this'

Washington reports at least 70 assisted suicides

LIFE DIGEST: Washington reports at least 70 assisted suicides: The state of Washington may already have surpassed Oregon as the leader in legal, physician-assisted suicides. At least 70 Washington residents died in 2011 as a result of taking lethal drug doses prescribed by doctors, the state’s Department of Health reported May 2. The total may have been higher, however. It was uncertain if five other people who died after receiving prescriptions of lethal medication did so after taking the drug. Another 19 people who received the prescriptions died without ingesting the medication.

'via Blog this'

Should We Kill Alzheimer’s Patients?

Should We Kill Alzheimer’s Patients? » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: A very disturbing article in New York Magazine by Michael Wolff. It tells the difficult story of his mother’s Alzheimer’s, a course of physical and mental decline about which I am very familiar as my uncle died from the complications of that awful disease. But Wolff says that such patients have lost dignity, and indeed, he more than implies the proper approach to dealing with dementia is to kill them sooner rather than bear the emotional and financial expense of caring for them over the long term.

'via Blog this'

The Perinatal Hospice: Allowing Parents to be Parents

The Perinatal Hospice: Allowing Parents to be Parents | Charlotte Lozier Institute: Perinatology– also known as maternal fetal medicine—is that branch of obstetrics  concerned with the care of mother and fetus and the handling of high-risk pregnancies.

In recent yeatrs, perinatologists have been incorporating into their practice a new concept in perinatal care called the “perinatal hospice.” This care originated in 1996 with the controversy over “partial-birth abortion.” This abortion method involved the surgical procedure where the baby would be delivered to the shoulders as a breech, then deliberately held in place while a scissors or other sharp instrument was inserted through the baby’s posterior skull into the brain resulting in death. Many perinatologists believed this procedure so horrible that they sought to find a better way to care for our patients facing the hardest circumstances.

Perinatal hospice is the prenatal diagnosis of a terminally ill fetus in-utero leading to perinatal hospice as part of the continuum of end-of-life care. . . .  Many of the hospice principles were successfully applied in perinatal hospice. The emphasis is on affirming life by care for the loved one, yet regarding dying as a normal part of life. A conscious effort is made to neither hasten death nor prolong dying. The team stresses values beyond the mere physical needs of the dying individual and allows the parents to “parent” their child for whatever time they are allowed. The family is supported in their medical, emotional, and spiritual needs through an organized, multidisciplinary team that cares for them after the death of the loved child during the period of grief.
'via Blog this'

US government sets out Alzheimer’s plan

US government sets out Alzheimer’s plan : Nature News & Comment: Last week, the government set out how it planned to spend a $50-million top-up to this year’s funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, announced in February as part of a bid to “prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025.” The money adds to the $448 million that the NIH was allocated to spend on the disease this year, and roughly half of it is already being used by scientists funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Institute on Aging.

'via Blog this'

Latest from Caring Right at Home

• "Go on Vacation? But I'm a Family Caregiver!"
• Driving and Dementia: A Difficult Conversation
• Planning for Our Senior Years
• Online Buzz: Living With Rheumatoid Arthritis

Georgia replaces assisted-suicide law that was tossed out

News in brief - May 21, 2012 - amednews.com: Georgia has enacted legislation to outlaw physician-assisted suicide, replacing a law the state Supreme Court struck down in February on First Amendment grounds. The law makes it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for any licensed Georgia “health care provider” to knowingly and willfully assist in the commission of a suicide.

'via Blog this'

The Weaker Parts

The Weaker Parts | Dr. Georgia Purdom's Blog: Paul says, “Those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Corinthians 12:22). Think about that in relation to those with disabilities: those we consider “weak” are indispensable in the body of Christ. Paul, an amazingly intelligent and gifted man, considered those who are “weak” to be indispensable. Not just “a good part of the body that we’re happy to have along,” but indispensable. Meaning the Body of Christ can’t function without them.

Video: The Sanctity of Life of Those With Disabilities

'via Blog this'

Oncologists Responding to Grief

JAMA Network | Archives of Internal Medicine | Invited Commentary—Oncologists Responding to Grief: The practice of oncology can be stressful. While some stress can be motivating and challenging, in its extremes, stress can lead to emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and self-perception of incompetence, all of which are considered hallmarks of burnout.

Stress and burnout should not be confused with grief. Grief is deep mental anguish arising from loss. Since death and loss are intrinsic aspects of oncologists' practice, grief is common, whether it be over the physical absence of a patient or the more abstract surrender of a meaningful joint struggle. Unaddressed grief over time can clearly contribute to burnout, which is an occupational hazard for physicians in general and oncologists in particular.

'via Blog this'

Campaign to legalize assisted suicide in S Africa

Campaign to legalise assisted suicide in SA - Mail & Guardian Online: A controversial campaign to legalise doctor-assisted suicide and active euthanasia was launched in Cape Town on Thursday, spearheaded by the Ethics Institute of South Africa (EthicsSA) and Dignity SA. The launch comes two weeks after the much-publicized return to South Africa of Dignity SA founder Sean Davison, following his five-month house arrest in New Zealand for assisting his aged mother to die.

'via Blog this'

Palliative Sedation Not = To Terminal Sedation/Euthanasia

Wesley J. Smith: The pro-euthanasia crowd intentionally and wrongfully conflates palliative sedation – that is sedating a dying patient at the end of life who is experiencing intractable pain or symptoms – with both euthanasia – fast killing the patient – and terminal sedation – slow killing the patient by inducing coma and withdrawing food and water. A good piece in the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy (201 2;26:30-39) shatters that lie. First, it notes that in palliative sedation, the point is to use the least amount of sedative to accomplish the needed palliation. From “Review of Palliative Sedation and Its Distinction From Euthanasia and Lethal Injection:”

Ideally, the level of palliative sedation is provided in a fashion that is titrated to a minimal level that permits the patient to tolerate unbearable symptoms, yet the patient can continue to periodically communicate…The three most common levels of providing PS include mild, intermediate, and deep. When mild sedation is used, the patient is awake and the level of consciousness is lowered to a somnolent state, withverbal or nonverbal communication still possible. With intermediate sedation, the patient is asleep or stuporous and can still be awakened to communicate briefly. The third level is deep sedation, which refers to the patient being near or in complete unconsciousness and does not communicate verbally or nonverbally. Besides regulating the degree of sedation, palliative sedation may also be provided intermittently or continuously…

The points to take away from the above are 1) palliative sedation is individualized to the patient’s needs, 2) the point isn’t to end the life of the patient, and 3) levels of sedation may vary in the same patient from time to time. In contrast, euthanasia kills the patientwith a lethal injection. And “terminal sedation” is merely the imposition of coma and withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration, sometimes without actual medical need and/or to make it easier for care givers–as in the much abused Liverpool Care Pathway in the UK.

Stand with the 8% – Down Syndrome Babies Who Weren’t Aborted

Stand with the 8% – Down Syndrome Babies Who Weren’t Aborted: Bristol Palin writes, "When Tripp is acting up — which he does often! — I sometimes joke with my mom, "Hey, want to trade kids?' I laugh."

Bristol Palin receives death threats for same-sex marriage stance

'via Blog this'

Who is the Final Exit Network?

Who are the Final Exit Network? | NRL News Today: FEN is a group who aids and counsels suicide, and who will journey with a person to assist in in completing a suicide as part of their Exit Guide Service.

'via Blog this'

Minnesota grand jury indicts right-to-die group

Minnesota grand jury indicts right-to-die group - BusinessWeek: A Minnesota grand jury has indicted a national right-to-die group and several members for their actions in the 2007 suicide of a suburban Minneapolis woman, prosecutors announced Monday. The 17-count indictment charges the medical director of Final Exit Network, Lawrence Egbert of Baltimore, and three other officials with felony counts of assisting suicide and interference with a death scene, a gross misdemeanor. It also charged the New Jersey-based group in its corporate capacity.

'via Blog this'

Assisted suicide or a show of love?

LA Times: Alan Purdy, 88, sat by while his beloved Margaret, 84 and in unrelieved pain, killed herself. San Diego County authorities arrested him, but the issue is tough for everyone involved. Prosecutors worry that declining to prosecute will put them on a slippery slope: What if the next case involves someone whose illness was not terminal? What if the surviving partner had a financial interest in the death?

Awakened: Immune cells revive woman in coma

Vitals - Awakened: Immune cells revive woman in coma: Researchers from the University of Munich recently reported that they were able to awaken an 82-year-old woman who’d been in a persistent vegetative state by using injections of her own immune cells. The woman, who had suffered a stroke, had been cared for at home by her family and a home health nurse -- for nine long years.

Editor: What was it, a coma or a "persistent vegetative state"? They're not the same.

Related:
The Journal of Medical Case Reports article (which explains it was a PVS after coma).
Wesley Smith commentary - Medical Morality Requires Equally Valuing Unconcious Patients

'via Blog this'

70 patients died under Washington state’s assisted-suicide law in 2011

News in brief - May 14, 2012 - amednews.com: The number of Washington state residents who died of physician-assisted suicide rose to 70 in 2011, up from 51 in 2010 and 36 in 2009, when the state’s Death With Dignity Act took effect. The Washington State Dept. of Health reported in May that 103 patients requested and received lethal doses of medications from 80 different physicians in 2011.

'via Blog this'

Testing a Drug That May Stop Alzheimer’s Before It Starts

Testing a Drug That May Stop Alzheimer’s Before It Starts - NYTimes.com: In a clinical trial that could lead to treatments that prevent Alzheimer’s disease, people who are genetically guaranteed to suffer from the disease years from now — but who do not yet have any symptoms — will for the first time be given a drug intended to stop them from developing it, federal officials announced Tuesday.

Related: National strategy on Alzheimer's disease aims to halt it by 2025

'via Blog this'

Biblical perspective on death

When her mother died, Georgia Purdom's whole world fell apart. "I cried, screamed, and shook my fist at God. It seemed so unfair, and I couldn’t understand why God would do this to me." She asked the question that many Christians do at times like this, “How do you explain death and suffering in a world where an all-powerful, loving, and just God exists?” She goes on:

I found the answer several years later when I really understood for the first time that death is man’s fault, not God’s. God made the world “very good” (Genesis 1:31—meaning no death, disease and suffering). There was only one thing Adam and Eve had to do to keep it that way—obey God by not eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16–17). Adam and Eve disobeyed God and the punishment for Adam’s sin was death, not just to man (Romans 5:12) but to all of creation (Romans 8:22). Scripture says that “in Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22), so the answer to my question was, “You explain it with sin: Adam’s sin and our personal sin.”

German Judge Opens Assisted Suicide Door

German Judge Opens Assisted Suicide Door » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: An administrative court in Berlin has given German doctors the power to use  their own judgment in cases involving terminally ill patients who want to  die. The court lifted a physician’s association ban on assisted suicide that  included fines of up to $65,722 on doctors who provided their patients with  enough drugs to kill themselves.The judges found the ban “too  general.” Euthanasia is currently illegal in Germany. However, if a doctor is certain a  dying patient wishes to end his or her life, a physician can provide that  patient with the means to commit suicide.

Wesley Smith notes that although the aim has been to stop suicide tourism (to Switzerland), it's just encouraging the practice at home. 

'via Blog this'

Brain Injury Gives Man A Second Chance To Be Kind

Brain Injury Gives Man A Second Chance To Be Kind | KQED Public Media for Northern CA: "You didn't walk, you didn't talk, and you couldn't feed yourself for seven months," Wendy Tucker says to her husband during a visit to StoryCorps in San Francisco. "Since then, it's just been getting better all the time."

But Ferreira, a former lawyer, remembers nothing from the time of the accident and doesn't feel like he's getting better. "My mind, I feel, is so damaged; it's kind of made my life very hard to live, really. I tried to commit suicide, because I thought that I'd lost so much of my life, why be alive? Why? So I took a drug overdose, but you took me to the hospital."

When she asks if he's sorry she saved his life, however, he says no. "You did the right thing. You saved my life, and you're still saving it. Every day you save it."

'via Blog this'

The Trouble With Futile Care Theory

The Trouble With Futile Care Theory » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog:

1. Futility is not a medical determination; it is a value judgment. Treatment is refused  based on “quality of life” judgmentalism and/or “cost-benefit” analysis.

2. Futility makes patient autonomy a one-way street. For years, we have been told that patients should state in writing what they want or don’t want in the event they become incapacitated. Futile Care Theory makes refusing treatment binding for  patients who want to die, but allows doctors/bioethicists the final say over the care of patients who expressed a desire to live.

3. Futility strips  from patients and families the power to make medicine’s most important health  care decisions and give it to strangers.

4. Futile Care Theory is only the first step toward a coming duty to die.

'via Blog this'

Heart disease and dementia

Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia: The second most common type of dementia, vascular dementia, develops when blood vessels do not supply adequate oxygen to the brain. Typically, small blockages deprive some brain cells of oxygen, causing them to die. Most of the time, the brain damage occurs in small enough amounts that it goes unobserved by the patient, family members, or friends. In effect, the patient is experiencing a series of small strokes.

'via Blog this'

Alzheimer's Patients Turn To Stories Instead Of Memories

Alzheimer's Patients Turn To Stories Instead Of Memories : Shots - Health Blog : NPR: The idea is to show photos to people with memory loss, and get them to imagine what's going on — not to try to remember anything, but to make up a story. Storytelling is one of the most ancient forms of communication — it's how we learn about the world. It turns out that for people with dementia, storytelling can be therapeutic. It gives people who don't communicate well a chance to communicate. And you don't need any training to run a session.

Learn more at TimeSlips

'via Blog this'

POLST: "Self-Determination" or Imposed Death?

LifeTree: “POLST” is short for “Physician’s Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment.” It is a so-called “advance care planning” document; a page or two of medical instructions designed to follow a patient from one setting to another. In Oregon the form is still called POLST, but in other states it has taken on a variety of names such as POST, MOLST, or MOST.  It was devised for sick and elderly people, and lists treatments they might wish to forgo. Any patient in a nursing home or a patient with an “advanced illness” would qualify.

'via Blog this'

Argentina Senate passes 'dignified death' law

BBC News - Argentina Senate passes 'dignified death' law: The Argentine Senate has approved a "dignified death" law to give the terminally ill and their families more say in end-of-life decisions. The legislation means patients who are dying or suffering incurable illness or injury can refuse treatment, if there is an existing signed consent form. Until now, a court order was needed to end treatment or life support.

'via Blog this'

Can a Sense of Purpose Slow Alzheimer's?

Can a Sense of Purpose Slow Alzheimer's? - Lane Wallace - Health - The Atlantic: Medical researchers have found that a strong sense of purpose and well-being correlates with better physical health, especially in older adults. But now there's another reason to rethink that stable but meaningless job versus a more meaningful job, life path, or vocation: it appears that a sense that your life has purpose, and that what you do matters, may actually protect your brain from the clinical effects of Alzheimer's disease.

'via Blog this'

Organ harvesting in light of questionable ‘brain death’ criterion

Vatican Radio tackles organ harvesting in light of questionable ‘brain death’ criterion | LifeSiteNews.com: The dubious criterion of ‘brain death,’ invented in 1968 to accommodate the need to acquire vital organs in their “freshest” state from a donor who some argue is still very much alive, made headlines two weeks ago when a young British man revealed to the media that he owed his life to his insistent father who would not allow his son’s organs to be removed from his body, despite assurances from four doctors that his son could not recover from the wounds he had suffered in a car accident.

Related:
Rebuttal and response
Making organ donations a thing of the past, British lab grows spare parts

'via Blog this'

Palliative care: Underused therapy yields surprising benefits

Harvard Health Letters: Palliative care: Underused therapy yields surprising benefits: The word palliate is derived from the Latin word for a cloak or coverlet. Perhaps that's one reason many people, both health care professionals and their patients, assume its goal is to simply mask or cover up symptoms when a remedy or cure is unavailable. But reducing discomfort and suffering is very different from and much more important than merely hiding distress from view -- and palliative care can go hand-in-hand with curative care and life-extending therapies.

Curative care focuses on the disease, while palliative care focuses on the patient. Modern palliative care strives to relieve physical and emotional suffering and to enhance the quality of life for patients and their families. It's a team effort.

'via Blog this'

Minnesota Grand Jury To Review Right-To-Die Case

Minnesota Grand Jury To Review Right-To-Die Case « CBS Minnesota: A grand jury is expected to hear evidence this week about the involvement of a national assisted suicide group in the death of a Minnesota woman in 2007. The case is expected to hinge on a Minnesota law that prohibits aiding, advising or encouraging a suicide.

'via Blog this'

RATIONING NEWS: EFFORT TO LIMIT WHAT WE SPEND TO SAVE OUR FAMILIES’ LIVES MIGHT BE SUCCEEDING

RATIONING NEWS: EFFORT TO LIMIT WHAT WE SPEND TO SAVE OUR FAMILIES’ LIVES MIGHT BE SUCCEEDING | NRL News Today: Under the Obama Health Care Law (ObamaCare), the federal government is empowered to impose so-called “quality” standards on all health care providers, standards based on recommendations on how to prevent Americans’ private health care spending from being allowed to keep up with the rate of medical inflation.  Those recommendations are to be  issued in 2015 and every two years thereafter by the 18-member “Independent Payment Advisory Board.” [See www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/ObamaHCRationingBasicDOCUMENTATION.pdf.]

What happens to doctors who violate a “quality” standard by prescribing more lifesaving medical treatment than the IPAB permits? They will be disqualified from contracting with any of the health insurance plans that individual Americans, under the Obama Health Care Law, will be mandated to purchase. Few doctors would be able to remain in practice if subjected to that penalty.

Editor: While I'm opposed to rationing in principle, I'm curious about that line, "limit what we spend." Who's we? If the government or an insurance company is footing they bill, guess what! They get to decide. I doubt if you or I were footing the bill that anyone would say no. Why do we expect someone else to care as much for our lives as we do?

'via Blog this'

Woman who sold suicide kits pleads guilty for failing to file taxes

Woman who sold suicide kits pleads guilty for failing to file taxes | NRL News Today: Sharlotte Hydorn, the 92-year-old woman who sold suicide kits, faces sentencing in San Diego for failing to file federal tax returns. Hydorn sold the kits under the name “GLADD Group.” In court, she admitted she made $66,717 in 2010 and paid no taxes on that.

'via Blog this'

Aggressive end-of-life care for Medicare dialysis patients is pervasive

Aggressive end-of-life care for Medicare dialysis patients is pervasive - amednews.com: Only 20% of the kidney-failure patients were referred to hospice, compared with 40% of the patients dying of heart failure and 55% of cancer patients.

“It’s really a shame that these elderly patients go through such intensive, aggressive treatment, and I’m sure they suffered more because of that rather than being comfortable and dying at home,” said Alvin H. Moss, MD, a Morgantown, W.Va., nephrologist and palliative medicine physician who did not participate in the study. . . . The hospice use by these elderly patients is less than half the national average, which is 45% now. The hospice use for cancer patients is above the national average, and people are more accepting of the fact that cancer patients might be referred to hospice. What most people don’t realize is that most dialysis patients are sicker than cancer patients.”

'via Blog this'

Video on marriage and disability

Ian and Larissa weren't even engaged when he suffered a debilitating accident. In this video, they tell why they decided to unite their lives.

Children and death

Weak and Loved: training: To the children, death means little. They hear about it often, but death is defined for them not by the cemetery, or by grief, or by their own personal losses. The word death, for them, is always connected to Jesus' death and resurrection.

Before their hearts are broken by death, they hear of Him who was broken to destroy it. Before they taste great suffering, they taste and see that the Lord is good.  Before they are bowed down by death’s reality, their feet are anchored into the reality of God’s love for us in Christ.

. . . For the Christian, darkness does not overcome. Even in the depths of sorrow, we have been trained to look forward. We know what comes next.

'via Blog this'

Can you help the Calvary Care Home AIDS Hospice?

Rambles and Run-ons: A FEW NEEDS: The AIDS hospice ministry in Richards Bay, South Africa could use a few items:

• 10 water-proof pillow covers (standard size) like those at http://bedwettingstore.com/vinyl-waterproof-pillow-covers.html.
• Peppermint tea- can be removed from box and packaged in a ziplock bag

A team of college students is going over the end of June and would be able to carry these items over in a suitcase. If you would like to purchase either of these items, please contact Heather Farran and she will give you a US address to ship them to.

'via Blog this'

New Zealand Medical Association states: Euthanasia is unethical

New Zealand Medical Association states: Euthanasia is unethical | NRL News Today: The chair of the New Zealand Medical Association, Paul Ockelford stated: “Even if the law changed, euthanasia is unethical and cannot be condoned by the NZMA as a professional body.”

'via Blog this'

Jesus and the disabled

Joni Eareckson Tada, in ECFA's Focus on Nonprofit Accountability, 2012 2nd quarter, page 1: "The greatest leader Who ever lived loved hanging around with weak people. He went out of His way to connect with the blind and the lame. He avoided the movers-and-shakers of His day and, instead, poured His energy into the ill-equipped and unskilled."

Paralysed man ‘wins’ court battle to end life by having respirator removed

Paralysed man ‘wins’ court battle to end life by having respirator removed | LifeSiteNews.com: The man, identified in court documents only as “XB,” has suffered from motor neuron disease for ten years. In 2010, the court was told, in discussions over what life-sustaining treatment he wanted after becoming incapacitated, XB said he would want treatment to be withdrawn. In November last year, he indicated before witnesses, including a social worker and a physician, that he consented to the removal of a respirator.

'via Blog this'

Georgia Right to Life Hails Assisted Suicide Ban Signing

Georgia Right to Life Hails Assisted Suicide Ban Signing - Christian Newswire: HB 1114 sponsored by Rep. Ed Setzler (District 35), was passed in response to last February's decision by the Georgia Supreme Court that struck down the state's previous weak and ineffective law. The law becomes effective immediately. The old law only prevented advertising assisted suicide services, but did not prohibit the procedure itself.

'via Blog this'

Role of nurses in Third Reich "overlooked"

Role of nurses in Third Reich "overlooked": comment: Survivor testimonies and available documents state that nurses actively and voluntarily participated in Nazi euthanasia programs, killing over 10,000 people, many of them children. Some estimates are as high as 30,000 victims. While it is impossible to find exact figures on the number of nurses involved - as most of the information was destroyed after the war - it was a minority of nurses but most have not been held to account for their crimes.

'via Blog this'

Pro-life encompasses all life: accompanying my dad through Alzheimer’s

Pro-life encompasses all life: accompanying my dad through Alzheimer’s | LifeSiteNews.com: Often, when we hear about Alzheimer’s disease, we hear of “the loss of dignity” or that our loved one “isn’t really there anymore.” I reject that characterization. No disease can take away a person’s humanity. Ask anyone who encountered my mom and dad during his illness; to a person they will attest to the dignity and beauty exhibited by the obvious and total self-giving love between my parents.

'via Blog this'

Avery's Bucket List: Blog for baby dying of spinal muscular atrophy

Avery's Bucket List: Parents pen blog for baby dying of spinal muscular atrophy - HealthPop - CBS News: At only 5 months old, Avery Canahuati has already had her first kiss, her first tattoo (temporary), and her first trip to college. That's because after their daughter was diagnosed with an incurable genetic disorder and told she had only 13 months, at best, left to live, Laura and Michael Canahuati decided to launch Avery's Bucket List.

Update: Baby with bucket list dies

'via Blog this'

Let’s give intellectually disabled the right to euthanasia, say Belgian humanists

BioEdge: Let’s give intellectually disabled the right to euthanasia, say Belgian humanists: People with intellectual disabilities, all children and people with dementia should be able to request euthanasia, the Belgian Liberal Humanist Association has declared. Its president, Jacinta De Roeck, a former senator who helped to draft the current law, says: “We can not accept that a certain group of people should be completely excluded from self-determination over life and death.” This is an especially touchy topic in Belgium because of  the euthanasia of mentally handicapped people in neighboring Germany under the Nazis.

'via Blog this'

A Conference on Stealth Euthanasia

2012: A Conference on Stealth Euthanasia: Human Life Alliance and United for Life of Minnesota are excited to announce Imposed Death: A Conference on Stealth Euthanasia to be held Saturday, June 2, 2012 in New Brighton, Minnesota. This full-day conference boasts a line-up of exceptional speakers covering a wide range of end-of-life topics.

'via Blog this'