The end of this AP article links to a Time magazine article on FEN that was published yesterday (March 2). I am waiting another day to write about that article. I sent an email about that article to Time magazine editor Richard Stengel and wanted to give a full 24 hours to hear a response before I published the complaint on the blog.
Meanwhile, today’s AP Story is titled Ring exposes rift in ‘right-to-die’ movement:
ATLANTA (AP) — The case against members of an assisted suicide ring charged with helping a Georgia man kill himself has exposed a rift in the “right-to-die” movement as key players, including Dr. Jack Kevorkian, rush to distance themselves from the group’s practices.
Kevorkian and others active in the movement have long argued that terminally ill people should be able to seek assistance ending their lives, but only from doctors. The Georgia-based Final Exit Network uses volunteers who are not physicians as “exit guides,” contending such efforts are necessary to help those who want to die but live in states where doctor-assisted suicide is illegal.
Where to begin here? First, as readers of this blog are well aware, Kevorkian never limited his “assistance” to “terminally ill people” and only a minority of his body count could be defined that way. Second, as Bluestein should know from his own previous coverage of this story, Final Exit Network “helped” people who fell far outside the bounds of “eligibility” in states where assisted suicide is legal. The argument is pure crap.
A prominent proponent of assisted from my current home town also chimes in:
Dr. Timothy Quill, a professor of medicine at the University of Rochester in upstate New York, said the case demonstrates a need for “a more humane approach.”
“They are symptomatic of the desperation and fear when people feel that their doctors and health care teams won’t be responsive,” said Quill, a supporter of the laws in Oregon and Washington.
“These are folks who don’t have any expertise in end-of-life care,” he said of the network members. “They are well-meaning, but they’re trying to be responsive to situations that are very complicated.”
Quill is well-informed enough to know how misleading and deceptive it is to refer to clients of FEN in the context of “end of life” care. But then again, Quill may be using the definition of “end of life” arrived at through circular logic. In older articles, Quill argued for granting assisted suicide for the “hopelessly ill” – the same type folk serviced by FEN. Quill probably offended by their lack of clinical expertise than their selection criteria. –Stephen Drake
if only such a devoted network existed to provide emergency PAS to those in need. that would save lives, not destroy them.
Nick,
I agree. But that’s not what these particular privileged white people want to spend their energies on.
*Supporting* someone in their efforts to live a decent life is much harder work than encouraging them to die. –Stephen