Ethics on Value of Life the Dilemma for Health Care Reform

Oncologists often face the questions about life and death often because they deal with a disease, cancer, that kills many people. Some therapies promise only to give a few extra months of life. Some of those therapies are painful, invasive, or debilitating. The ethical concerns about cost of a procedure vs. the length of time it can prolong a person’s life is an issue many physicians face with their patients. So how does a doctor make those choices? Digital Journal

An Historical Look Back: Dame Cicely Saunders

“I think very soon the right to die will become the duty to die.”

Dame Cecily Mary Strode Sauders, M.D., Founder of the modern hospice movement, 1918 – 2005

On euthanasia, 60 Minutes, CBS TV 24 Jul 83.

Credited with founding the modern hospice movement; she was the leading figure in the campaign to establish hospices around the world. Guided by her Christian faith and strongly opposed euthanasia, Saunders had a clear view of the role of hospices. "I once asked a man who knew he was dying what he needed above all in those who were caring for him. He said, 'For someone to look as if they are trying to understand me'," she said. "Indeed, it is impossible to understand fully another person, but I never forgot that he did not ask for success but only that someone should care enough to try." Her belief that dying is a phenomenon "as natural as being born," was at the heart of a philosophy that sees death as a process that should be life-affirming and free of pain. In her work toward changing society's attitude to what was regarded as the Western world's last taboo she said, "You matter because you are you, and you matter to the last moment of your life." Dame Cecily Saunders - Hospice Founder

MOVING VIDEO: In the Blink of an Eye

In a time when death is viewed as better than disability, this short video carries a simple truth profoundly stated. It moved me beyond words. It states, in a most eloquent way, what I believe with all my heart: all human life matters. In the Blink of an Eye - Video

Hospice Care Versus Physician-Assisted Suicide

Fear of abandonment, fear of unbearable suffering, depression and despair are the root causes of suicide in the terminally ill. Hospice care demonstrates that terminally ill patients need not be left to die alone or in unfamiliar, sterile environments, and that pain and other symptoms can be prevented or adequately treated. The choice is ours. To enact legislation allowing physician-assisted suicide is to plunge our society more deeply into the culture of death. It is imperative to defeat such legislation, and in its place to enact legislation which would increase the resources available to bring competent, compassionate health care to patients and families in their homes -- not only in the last six months of their lives as is presently done in hospice programs, but also long term for the chronically ill, the severely disabled and the frail elderly. In doing so we would have to our credit a major step toward transforming our culture of violence and death into a civilization of love and life. Hospice Vs. PAS

Scottish Parliament "Narrow" Assisted Suicide Bill Again Demonstrates That the Movement is Not About Terminal Illness

There is a bill pending in the Scottish Parliament to legalize assisted suicide. It's author recently "narrowed" the bill to protect the vulnerable. But the narrowed bill would explicitly legalize assisted suicide for people with disabilities, once again clearly demonstrating that the "death with dignity" movement is not about a "choice" for the dying. No wonder the disability rights community is up in arms about assisted suicide Scottish Assisted Suicide Bill

Dignitas Founder Plans Assisted Suicide of Healthy Woman

The founder of the Swiss assisted-suicide clinic Dignitas revealed plans today to help a healthy wife die alongside her terminally ill husband. Ludwig Minelli described suicide as a “marvelous opportunity” that should not be restricted to the terminally ill or people with severe disabilities.
Dignitas Plans Suicide of Healthy Woman

Time for Dad to Die: After a Stroke, He's Gone But Still There

I love my 90-year-old father, and I wish he would die. In August, he told me, "I just want to live long enough to vote." On Oct. 20, just past midnight, he turned off CNN in his house in Massachusetts, started up to bed and had a massive hemorrhagic stroke. Had he had the stroke in the chair, my stepmother would have assumed he was sleeping, and without medical attention, he probably would have died by morning. The thumps he made falling down the stairs woke my sister and my stepmother, and saved his life. But what kind of life? Time for Dad to Die As a sideline, be sure to read Wesley Smith's reaction “What We Are Becoming: Time to Dehydrate Debilitated Stroke Patient”

Is He Dead Yet?

No matter what side of the organ donor argument you are on, when you read Zach Dunlap's story you will probably take a step back - to contemplate.

Zach's "brain dead" to life story (transcript) and Zach's Interview

Parents' Hospital Lawsuit Says Teen Was 'Killed' For Organs

The parents of an 18-year-old who suffered a brain injury in a 2007 snowboarding accident say his doctors "intentionally killed" him to harvest his organs. In the lawsuit filed this week in the U.S. District Court of Western Pennsylvania, Michael and Teresa Jacobs claim that doctors "hastened" their son Gregory Jacobs' death by delaying treatment and ultimately pulling his breathing tube, causing him to suffocate. Teen Killed for Organs?

Terminally Ill Opt for Suicide by Starvation

To avoid the legal ban on medically assisted dying, doctors are helping patients starve and dehydrate themselves to death. The retired GPs have advised patients who are terminally ill, or suffer from a degenerative disease, that they can refuse food and drink if they are unable or unwilling to travel to a Swiss clinic to receive a fatal dose of medication. They admit the process of starving and dehydrating to death is “horrific,” but say patients have no alternative as long as euthanasia is illegal in Britain. The doctors are members of the campaign group Friends at the End (Fate), which lobbies for the introduction of assisted dying in Britain and gives practical advice on suicide. They warn patients determined to dehydrate themselves to death not to succumb to the temptation to rinse their parched mouths with water or ice, because this merely prolongs the agony. Suicide by Starvation So I guess now we should close all suicide prevention hotlines, because they would interfere with the wishes of suicidal people.