Assisted Suicide Advocates Factually Challenged About Senate Hearing
It was brought to my attention that the euphemistically named Compassion and Choices (formerly, the Hemlock Society), has a notice on its WEB site about yesterday's committee hearing that is pure baloney. The note states, "Witnesses called by the majority talked about the Netherlands and did not attempt to denigrate the Oregon experience. Compassion & Choices' witnesses performed like ROCK STARS. Julie McMurchie, Ann Jackson and Kathryn Tucker all presented strong, fact-filled testimony that was not challenged."
Whether they performed like rock stars, one could say, is in the ear of the listener. But the assertion that none of us tried to "denigrate the Oregon experience" or failed to challenge Tucker's et.al, assertions, is plainly not true. Rita Marker's testimony was all about Oregon. And I weighed in also during the question and answer portion of the hearing. I pointed out that the law permits suicidal patients to go "doctor shopping" when their personal physicians refuse to assist their suicides. These patients often end up with a doctor referred by assisted suicide advocates and that some knew their death doctors two weeks or less before dying by lethal overdose. I called this rank "Kevorkianism." I also emphasized that the statistics reported by Oregon are unreliable because the state depends on death doctor self-reporting--without engaging in any independent oversight--a point picked up in this AP story about the hearing.
The moral of the story? When assisted suicide advocates make supposed factual assertions, take it with a grain of salt the size of a granite boulder.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 1:05 PM
10 Comments
10 Comments:
Wesley, the testimony I read at the hearing you testified at was like night and day. I've never heard the process of killing wrapped so well.
I was not comforted by the hospice representative's statement that PAS seekers are not motivated by pain and depression like opponents contend, but are instead motivated by a loss of autonomy, lack of enjoyment of life, loss of dignity and that they feel like they are a burden. The last three sound a lot like depression to me. Not wanting to live because I've lost autonomy sounds like depression too.
I don't see how the PAS case is helped by saying it's not about pain and depression but about loss of autonomy and the enjoyment of life and etc, as if that legitimizes it. This is another one of those condescending putdowns wrapped up as "compassion" that tells a whole class of people that their lives are not worth living. If these were healthy, ambulatory, promising teenagers who were in a funk, they'd get them counseling because they "have so much to live for" just as they did to a close friend who tried to commit suicide even though he was homecoming king, student body president, a track star and couldn't keep the girls away. We put boatloads of money into preventing THEIR suicides. But, if you don't have long to live and you aren't autonomous, don't enjoy life and feel burdensome, then we can understand that YOU'D want to kill yourself. That is bigoted and says that we don't believe that those lives are worth living because of their physical makeup and abilities.
The notion that meaning in life diminishes as automy diminishes or that the value of life is dependent upon its length is offensive.
I'm guessing that that lady has no idea that's what her words mean and that's how people living highly dependent lives are going to hear it. She probably thinks her words are "compassionate" too.
The Congress has to amend the CSA to keep doctors and patients from suicide in the interest of promoting human life. To do otherwise is to tell a whole class of people that we agree that their lives are not living. That is intolerable.
Don Nelson
Sparks, NV
Yea. At the hearing we heard a lot about unbearable suffering and pain, and etc. Then, it isn't about pain, but dignity ane loss of enjoyment. It kind of whipsawed. A lot of emotionalism from the other side. That is their strongest card.
That hospice rep. is really hemlock, if you get my drift. She pretends to be "neutral," but she is about as neutral as I am. She know precisely what her words mean and how she hopes the listener will interpret them.
Winston Jen: Try as you like to pretend there isn't one, the distinction between killing and allowing natural death is a significant and crucial one ethically and morally. Indeed, it has become one of the most settle issues in American jurisprudence.
Uh, Terri Schiavo WASN'T on life support; she needed only a feeding tube.
But, hey, why let the facts get in the way of a good utilitarian argument?
This post was about how the Compassion and Choices folk misstated (to put it tactfully) what happened at the Senate hearing. It was not to open a general dialogue about assisted suicide. But hey, have it it, guys.
The Congress should amend the CSA to say that using controlled substances for euthanasia/assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose. There are many reasons for doing so. Chief among them is that the government has the duty to protect the right to life of everyone living under its governance. It must use whatever means it legally can to prevent or limit assisted suicide. If it doesn't, that government is acknowledging that it believes that certain classes of people are really life unworthy of life and that we can understand why THEY would want to die. That is not only dehumanizing, it is also bigoted and a direct threat to the right to life of anyone who bears those characteristics... loss of autonomy, feeling like they are a burden, lack of present enjoyment of life. Not only that, it threatens all of us because once we establish that SOME lives are life unworthy of life, then the rest of us are threatened too. We become subject to negotiation about the lack of or degree of certain characteristics.
The Congress must amend the CSA to say that use of controlled substances to assist in suicide is not an acceptable medical purpose. Our government should not allow there to be even a hint that some lives are so lacking in value that we could understand that they'd want to kill themselves. When governments fail to act against this kind of thinking, they are failing in their duties to protect the most fundamental right, the right to life.
Two words why ALL legislation allowing "doctor-assisted suicide" and euthanasia should be defeated: managed care.
With our totally broken health care system, NOBODY should trust the medical community (and insurance companies) to make the right decision for those most vulnerable to being killed.
The "bioethicists" just love to paint people who oppose eugenics as a bunch of religious nuts, but this is NOT a religious issue, and I am sick and tired of it being framed that way. I am also sick of the "culture of death" rhetoric on the other side because it tends to reinforce what the propagandists on the bioethics side are trying to push. It's quasi-religious, and this is NOT a religious issue. This is a HEALTH CARE ISSUE, and people who claim they support health care as a right but want to deny health care to the people who need it most are flaming hypocrites.
This is NOT about "freedom" or "choice," because the vast majority of people who are faced with being euthanized or medically killed are NOT make the "choice"; it's being made FOR them by the "ethics" committees, unscupulous guardians, idiotic judges, and insurance companies that want to save money.
Health care access and medical discrimination are what this is all about, and if the public knew what the real issues were, they would reject the bioethics propaganda.
Winston wrote:
“Also, Don Nelson, Theresa Stephany, a HOSPICE NURSE, in the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care (July/August 1994, Vol. 2, No. 4) said, ‘It is insulting to assume that patients who request assisted suicide are clinically depressed. Many are just realistic. They know what lies ahead and they'd rather not continue with it.’"
Wow, I have insulting ideas. I’m so ashamed. People who don't want to live have given up hope. A life without hope is a life of despair. Saying you feel like a burden, your life isn't worth living, and you want to die because you are dependent and not autonomous sounds depressive to me.
But that's not my argument. My argument is that when the state allows assisted suicide and doesn't do all that it can to prevent it, it tells whole classes of people that their lives are not worth living. It sounds close to the argument that aborting the unborn is acceptable because he or she might be handicapped, live a short life, be poor, be abused, unwanted and etc. What does that say about those classes of people? It says that the handicapped, the poor, the abused and the “unwanted” and those with certain genetic traits are so lacking in meaning and dignity that we can/should kill anyone who might turn out like them-and that we’d be doing all of us a favor-society and the targeted person. The state must run away from that kind of bigotry and any suggestion that there is anything such as life unworthy of life; and it must work against that idea-even when people who want to kill themselves judge that their own lives to be life unworthy of life. That’s one reason the Congress of the United States needs to amend the CSA to ban the use of controlled substances for assisted suicide. The government cannot agree with citizens that their own lives are not life worthy of life without jeopardizing others in that class of people-as well as others. Once the sanctity of life is given up/lessened/denied for one person or group, the right to life for the rest of us is negotiable.
It’s bizarre to me that we expend incredible resources to prevent certain people from committing suicide like my “perfect” relative who was student body president, homecoming king, track star, the All-American boy/girl and etc… But when we hear others express suicidal thoughts, we try to make sure they really know what they are doing instead of ordering intervention. What makes the one more worth living than the other? How do we agree that the one is less worth living without saying that all others like him/him or her don’t have worthwhile lives? But then again, there’s the notion of rational suicide and attempts to allow early teens to participate in it in Holland. Maybe there’s a consistency held to by some who think that it is just as bizarre that we would try to prevent suicides of people who “know what lies ahead and they’d rather not continue with it” no matter how much we think they have to live for and no matter how big of a waste we think it is for them to throw away such promise.
By the way Winston, save the putdowns about pro-life compassion. A lot of that “grain of salt” is actually the “salt of the earth.” No one on my side takes those putdowns seriously from the culture of death. It makes for a good laugh, but that’s about it.
Winnie,
Thanks for trying to grant me immortality. It was nice of you to think of me. My comments to that site and your alleged reason for me saying it are posted below. BAP, right on. Go get 'em.
I'm sorry it took so long to get back to them. I've been working on my own blog, working on spreading the culture of life here, tending to my dad and prepping for our radio show www.ihradio.org-Voice For Life, which Wes has been on several times. He's our best guest in my opinion.
Win, you still did not respond to my argument as to why the state should discourage assisted suicide and why it has an interest in promoting life. You keep running away to tell me that PAS is okay because people aren't depressed, which wasn't my argument. But I will say that the description that I read from that nurse testifying to congress sounded like depression to me. Your argument is with her, not me.
All of you "self killing is good" people have these arguments that certain conditions make suicide rational and good. You have to make them to justify your position. Those arguments tells people with those conditions that their lives are life unworthy of life. That is biggoted and dehumanizing. The state must oppose that with all means it can even when people want to kill themselves.
My dad has had horrible arthritis for over 40 years. He also has spinal stenosis, is missing part of a limb from diabetes and obesity and is not autonomous. I do not consider his life less worth living or any attempt to do himself in to be rational. I did not consider my mother's final days in her battle with painful cancer to be any less meaninful either. I find any suggestion that people like him should have the right to do so to be offensive.
I did not argue that PAS was bad because only poor people were going to do it. Though I think that is a serious potential problem with the HMO situation here in America. I think the fact those doing it are wealthy and educated is more of a commentary on wealth and education. It's clear frfom your comments that the condition of being wealthy and educated doesn't increase happiness, satisfaction or purpose. My friends in Oakland CA who were refugees from SE Asia in the 80's and had nothing but the clothes on their back and lived two and three families to a little rental home had more happiness.
People who are in pain, have a short time to live, have lost autonomy and etc do not lose or diminish their capacity to have meaning and purposeful lives as long as they are able to keep living. That's because human dignity, purpose, happiness and meaning do not depend on one's physical condition/abilities or their abilities to order their worlds. To limit purpose in life to those things is frankly spiritually impoverished-and I don't mean it in the fundamentalist sense you characterized me at the website. Humans are more than their physical powers and ability to be autonomous. They still contribute to others and experience intense spiritual experiences even when they lose the former.
My comments to that site you posted my comments to to try to ridicule me are below.
Don Nelson
Winnie is a little self absorbed here. I wasn't responding to her argument. I was responding to United States Senate testimony on whether or not the Congress should amend the Controlled Substances Act to ban the use of narcotics to assist people in self killing because assisting that self-killing is not a legitimate medical purpose.
My words "The notion that meaning in life diminishes as automy (spelling error-I went to USA public schools) diminishes or that the value of life is dependent upon its length is offensive" are self-evident. My dad is in a group home in Castro Valley CA because he is partially incapacitated by a stroke. Thank God Winnie's not there. She'd finish him off for her perceived lack of meaning. His live is not anyless meaningful because he’s lost his autonomy and has to be given his meds 8 times a day and have his diabetic meals cooked three times a day. My mother died from cancer. It was a painful death. She drank morphine out of the bottle. I wouldn't trade those last days of her life for anything. She was still pouring herself out to me even in those last days. Her life didn't stop being meaningful just because she was dying, in pain and lost her autonomy to the point that we had to change her. Meaning/purpose and happiness in life are not dependent upon our physical/sexual proweress or the ability to control our world. There's far more to life than those things. I will never reduce human dignity to the possession of those traits. To do so would be undignified.
My words "I'm guessing that that lady has no idea that's what her words mean and that's how people living highly dependent lives are going to hear it. She probably thinks her words are "compassionate" too" are self-evident too for humane people. When we argue for self-killing based on someone's life or physical condition, we are telling everyone with those circumstances or conditions that we think their lives are so pathetic that we think their self murder is understandable.
It would have been nice if Winnie would have engaged my argument that the state should do everything in its power to oppose the idea that there are certain classes of people whose lives are so meaningless that we can understand why they would want to kill themselves. That is bigoted, condescending, inhumane and makes people in those classes… diminished autonomy and etc, feel like targets. I gave her two chances and she ducked them both and ran for comfort to a site like this which tries to impress its participants by ridicule.
Don Nelson
President
Nevada LIFE
www.nevadalife.org
www.nevadalifeissues.typepad.com
Sparks, NV, USA
Winston Jen said...
"Don, if you want the government to prevent all suicides, they would have to make it illegal to refuse treatment. After all, self-starvation is also suicide, albeit a very SLOW method. Inserting a feeding tube via surgery is medical treatment, however you wish to look at it.
The government rightfully recognises that there are some things more important than the prolongation of biological life, such as liberty.
Your stance of preserving life until people die naturally is sick and disgusting, because it give no consideration to how people in that situation feel. It is painfully clear that you have not endured any real pain YOURSELF in your life. It's always much easier to watch others in pain than it is to go through that pain yourself."
Winston,
I get it. You believe there are people whose lives are NOT worth living and as a result think the government should not discourage all suicide. The difference between us is that I believe human value and dignity are inherent, intrinsic, innate, wrapped into the fabric of our being. Those properties are ours by the mere fact of our existence. There are no hoops to jump through or value and dignity tests. You have criteria for a life being worthy of life. It’s bigoted for the government to discourage the killing of certain groups of people, but not others. You would put the government in the position of telling whole classes of people that their lives are not really worth living and self termination is acceptable-we’ll even provide the means to help you go out. I’m guessing people in THOSE classes don’t appreciate that.
Whether or not I have experienced pain or am in pain right now is irrelevant. That’s an ad hominem attack and evasion. It attacks me and not the argument. There are plenty of people who have lost their autonomy, their physical prowess, their ability to make a living, who battle chronic depression and have a short time left to live who would say the exact same things I am saying, but with more force because they hear in your voice that their conditions are so pathetic that their lives are not really worthy of life. They hear you saying it would be understandable if they just went away or killed themselves. If we want to talk about pain, and the feelings of suicidal sufferers, what about the feelings of these people who do not want to kill themselves and how they hear what you are saying about their value? Your argument is with them. Who do THOSE people think are the most compassionate between us? Who do THOSE people think they could trust more with their lives? I’m going to bet it’s our side. I’m guessing people look at Mother Theresa’s treatment of the dying in Calcutta as a lot more humane than Jack Kevorkian. I’m no Mother Theresa.
The government must oppose the idea that there are classes of people whose lives are so pathetic that we could understand their self extermination-they are not worth saving. That idea not only threatens people with pain, disability or whatever your side argues rationalizes life worthy of life, it targets them and targets all of us because it suggests that the quality of human life is negotiable and subject to the valuation/assessment of some group of people. People do not have the right to force the state/public to agree with them that their lives are life unworthy of life and in the process dehumanize all those sharing their characteristics.
Life comes before liberty in the ordering of rights. Without life, there is no liberty. I’d rather be Mandela or Solzhenitsyn in a prison than dead.
You dehumanize people by the words “prolongation of biological life.” These people you are talking about are mere biological organisms. They are not mere biological life. But then your side has to resort to these dehumanizations to get your way. They are human beings with inherent dignity and value. The value of human beings and their meaning do not depend on their degree of autonomy, their condition or the amount of time they have left to live. My view is disgusting? I’ll let people decide between us who is disgusting… a person like you who thinks there are classes of people who are life unworthy of life and whose dignity, purpose and value diminishes with their autonomy, physical condition and etc, or those of us who believe that human dignity, value, meaning and etc are inherent, innate, intrinsic to our being.
I think human beings have inherent value and dignity. You don’t. At least you can’t believe that to come to your position. I think that explains our position.
I think we’ve beaten this to death.
Day is dying in the West. Have a good day or night down under.
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