What’s so civilised about a couple killing themselves?

A national hysteria over suicide rates in Wales, dismay in Northern Ireland over suicides among young mothers, and alarm throughout the British Isles over the incidence of young men taking their own lives. That’s the norm. That’s how our society responds to suicide. It’s an emergency. And that’s the way it should be. No one should have to have their bank balance examined, or their IQ measured, before we regard their killing themselves as anything other than a failure of the way our society functions. Belfast Telegraph

Cash for terminally ill 'going elsewhere'

Millions of pounds which the Government allocated for the care of terminally ill patients is not reaching the people it was intended to help, a hospice charity has claimed. Last year, the Government pledged £286 million towards end-of life care. However, Help the Hospices has found a number of primary care trusts still not able to identify their share of the extra money. Western Morning News

Our ageing world isn't a catastrophe. It's a triumph.

The rise in the number of the old is a massive human success story: life expectancy increases because of better education, greater wealth, lower infant mortality, better healthcare, less disease, the reduction of armed conflict, and the development of technology and its application in pursuit of good. It is, frankly, insane to look at an ageing population and not rejoice. Why do we even have a concept of public health, of co-operation, of sharing knowledge, if not to extend life, wherever we find it? The problem, then, is not age as such but the proportion of the aged. Guardian

World's elderly to overtake number of infants

With every passing month, another 870,000 people turn 65 and the world's cohort of pensioners becomes larger still. Thanks to rising life expectancy, their ranks will soon be growing by almost two million a month and, by 2040, their numbers will have doubled to 1.3 billion. This will reduce the size of the working population and impose huge new pension costs, threatening to reduce the overall growth of the world economy. The US Census Bureau predicts pensioners will soon overtake the number of infants under the age of five because old people are now increasing faster than the very youngest human beings. Telegraph

Doctors told not to discuss assisted suicide with patients

The Medical Defence Union, which represents half of UK doctors, reminded members that assisting a suicide is illegal in England and Wales and that they should not give advice to patients to help them travel abroad to take their own lives. Telegraph

Disabled people alarmed at nurses organisation new stance on assisted suicide

No Less Human, a disability rights group, has expressed great alarm at yesterday's news that the Royal College of Nursing has moved from opposing assisted suicide to taking a neutral stance on the issue. SPUC

New Facebook page

Check out the new Facebook page, using the link at right. I posted a few photos from the LIFT training that is going on now in our office.

How long until we abort the old too?

We are asked to admire the rather creepy suicide pact of Sir Edward and Lady Downes, as if it is some sort of act of heroism rather than a sad and squalid snuffing out of life in a Swiss back street. These hard cases and emotional scenes are the equivalent of the old argument for abortion, that if you didn’t fully legalise it people would go to dangerous amateurs and die horribly. And as soon as it was replaced by a more liberal law, the present annual massacre began, and continued to grow. The same will happen to the old and unwanted. It will start with a few dozen annual trips to Zurich, urged on by ‘compassionate’ relatives and complaisant doctors. It will end with our hospitals switching on the morphine pump earlier and earlier. Daily Mail

Why I took my wife to die at Dignitas

Before her illness, when she was the devoted mother and bubbly, creative presence who lit up his own more procedural approach to life, he had been, he says, “one of those people who considered Dignitas part of a slippery slope” in an inevitable cheapening of life. “I was just horrified by the whole thing,” he says, sitting looking out over the garden in his Kent home that Elaine planned and laid out. “And Elaine was absolutely in love with life. She never would have contemplated this route in normal circumstances.” But circumstances were anything but normal a few months after her diagnosis. Telegraph

'My father-in-law died at Dignitas without telling us'

We were completely stunned, shattered, and totally confused. It felt like a hole in my heart when I thought of the things he'd said on that final day together. Then I got angry. Wasn't it incredibly selfish of Henry to do what he did to people he loved? When I had recovered enough to drive, I went to the local police station and demanded that they launch an investigation. To this day, the details of my father-in-law's death are still unclear. Telegraph

LIFT Summit line-up

The 2nd annual LIFT Caregiver Summit line-up is shaping up with these scheduled workshop and plenary speakers:

• Christiana Getz, from the Alzheimer’s Association, speaking on “Meaningful Activities for Persons with Dementia”
• Anne Ellermets, from the Area Agency on Aging, on “Caregiver Resources”
• Sharon Van Dyke on “Making the Most of Chronic Illness"
• Rev. Ray Paget on “Grief Recovery and Mourning”

The Summit will be Saturday, October 24, 2009, at Grandville Bible Church in Grandville, MI. For more information, email or phone 1-800-968-6086, (616) 257-6800.

What and when is death

The President’s Council on Bioethics has taken up this question in a recently published report entitled Controversies in the Determination of Death. At stake in the report is the moral status of those human beings who are “suspended at the threshold.” These are human beings who have suffered the worst sort of injury to the brain, but who, with technological support, retain ambiguous signs of life. The brain injury leaves them in a state of incapacitation significantly more profound than that associated with the “persistent vegetative state,” the condition associated with the cases of Karen Ann Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan, and Terri Schiavo. The name given to their injury is “brain death,” or sometimes “whole brain death.” The President’s Council suggests a more neutral term: “total brain failure.” Calling the condition by this name does not pre-judge the question of whether the patient so diagnosed is alive or dead. The New Atlantis

Top conductor and wife latest to die at Dignitas

Sir Edward Downes CBE was conductor emeritus of the BBC Philharmonic orchestra and Lady Joan Downes was a former ballet dancer and choreographer. News of their deaths last Friday became public when their children released a statement yesterday. Sir Edward, 85, had been losing his sight and hearing, while his 74-year-old wife had been suffering from terminal cancer. Christian Institute

Son confesses: I killed my mum

Sean Davison published a book last month about his 85-year-old mother's final days, without disclosing the role he played after his mother summoned him home to Dunedin to help her die. However, a copy of his original manuscript, supplied anonymously to the Herald on Sunday this week, contains the incriminating details that were deleted from the book. Davison, 47, this week verified the manuscript's authenticity, and said he did not fear police charges. New Zealand Herald

5 people die under new Washington physician-assisted suicide law

Fourteen patients in that state requested doctors' aid in dying. Meanwhile, more patients than ever made use of Oregon's death-with-dignity law in 2008. Am Med News

Media Utter Inability to Report Assisted Suicide Stories Accurately

The media everywhere can’t–or won’t–report assisted suicide-related stories accurately. Example: Most stories still report that Jack Kevorkian assisted the suicides of the terminally ill when 70 percent or so of his victims were not terminally ill and five had no illnesses upon their autopsies. Secondhand Smoke

Assisted suicide group signs deal with Swiss authorities

Exit, a Swiss association for assisted suicide, has signed a deal with the authorities regulating its activities, in the first move of its kind. Exit said the paperwork does not change how it operates, only formalizes its activities, and that it signed the agreement voluntarily. It believes the document ensures the "right to a dignified death" and "self-determination," two principles key to the idea behind assisted suicide. Top News

Can brains be saved?

You may think you don’t know anyone with a brain injury, but they’re all around you. One could be the person you see lose his temper with the store clerk because sports-induced concussions left him short-fused. Another could be your neighbor who keeps locking her keys in the car or the man who looks healthy but needs a few tries to push a revolving door. Despite its prevalence, brain injury bears a stigma. To many of the uninitiated, a person with Traumatic Brain Injury equals “slow” or “retarded.” Parade

In the Hands of Strangers: The Fight for Gary Harvey

This is a case where a 55 year old man had a heart attack, fell down the basement stairs, and ended up severely brain damaged. It is a case where still another so-called ethics committee felt it had some sort of god-like wisdom and right to determine life or death for a stranger. It is a case where a so-called ethics committee decided, behind closed doors, that it was perfectly okay to starve and dehydrate this man — Gary Harvey — to death by termination of his Total Parenteral Nutrition feeding tube. Dakota Voice

Assisted Suicide Advocate Slanders Physicians as Torturers

The vast majority of people in this country do not die in ICU units. Hospitals aren’t prisons. Doctors aren’t torturing people, they are trying to treat them, which can be painful to be sure, but much effort is made to control painful and uncomfortable symptoms. Nobody ties people down and forces them to have chemotherapy, surgery, kidney dialysis, etc. Most people are desperate for these interventions–even when the doctor advises against because they are unlikely to do much good. Secondhand Smoke

Faith leaders join forces against assisted suicide

Three of Britain’s most senior religious leaders have come together to express their concern about ‘back door’ attempts to legalise euthanasia. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury; Vincent Nichols, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster; and Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, have signed a joint letter to The Daily Telegraph. Christian Institute

Quebec Physicians Propose Legalized Euthanasia

In what one prominent euthanasia opponent has called "a straw man argument," the Quebec College of Physicians is proposing that euthanasia be legalized "as part of the appropriate care in certain particular circumstances." After having examined the issue for three years, the College's task force on ethics concluded that Quebec society has grown to the point where it can now tolerate euthanasia. LifeSiteNews

Belgian Euthanasia Law - Critical Analysis

The essay opens with some background information about the context of euthanasia in Belgium. It proceeds by discussing the Belgian law on euthanasia and concerns about the law. Finally, suggestions as to how to improve the Belgian law and practice of euthanasia are made, urging the Belgian legislators and medical establishment to reflect and ponder so as to prevent potential abuse. Social Science Research Network

Protecting Yourself and Your Family, part 3

Rita Marker, Executive Director of the International Task Force on Euthanasia, tells us in the final of her three part series that more than ten years ago, Hemlock Society's co-founder Derek Humphry wrote, "One must look at the realities of the increasing cost of health care in an aging society because, in the final analysis, economics, not the quest for broadened individual liberties or increased autonomy, will drive assisted suicide to the plateau of acceptable practice." Rita says, "Unless concerted, effective efforts are made now to oppose the spread of assisted suicide, Humphry's words could become tragically prophetic." Human Life Alliance

Vulnerable protected as assisted suicide bid fails

A bid to weaken the law on assisted suicide was voted down in the House of Lords last night. Peers voted 194 to 141 against the plan to make it legal to help someone travel overseas to commit suicide. A disabled Peer, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, made a moving speech appealing to peers to reject the amendment. Christian Institute

Primary care urged to implement new end-of-life guidelines

Primary care services will face an ‘avalanche of need’ among dying patients if they do not act now to improve end-of-life care, a leading expert in end-of-life care has warned. Nursing Times

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

Get to Know: Resources in the UK

• Princess Royal Trust for Carers http://www.carers.org/
• Counsel and Care http://www.counselandcare.org.uk/
• Queens Nurses Institute http://www.qni.org.uk/
• Crossroads Caring for Carers http://www.crossroads.org.uk/
• Association for Nurse Prescribing http://anp.org.uk/

Get to know: NFCA

The National Family Caregivers Association educates, supports, empowers and speaks up for the more than 50 million Americans who care for loved ones with a chronic illness or disability or the frailties of old age. NFCA reaches across the boundaries of diagnoses, relationships and life stages to help transform family caregivers' lives by removing barriers to health and well being.

Educational seminar in August

The Alzheimer’s Association is sponsoring a community educational seminar this August in Grand Rapids. Topics to be covered include: tips for getting a diagnosis; latest information on treatment and research developments; tips for when and how to stop the person with dementia from driving; balancing independence and safety; tips for keeping the person with dementia active; many ideas for successful activities, including a new focus on artistic expression.