Hawaii – Robert Yagi Dead, and Assisted Suicide Advocates Continue to Exploit the Tragedy

While no one could have predicted Robert Yagi’s suicide, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise.  Yagi was the 71-year-old-man charged with attempting to kill his wife with a flare gun loaded with a shotgun shell.  According to police, he planned to kill himself after killing her.  Friday’s blog entry described how that half-baked plan resulted in his wife – who was in the hospital – receiving only minor injuries.  The “plan” (or whatever you want to call this rather bizarre and frantic attempt) also resulted in Yagi’s arrest on attempted second-degree murder charges.

The Honolulu Advertiser reports:

Robert Yagi, the 71-year-old man charged with second-degree attempted murder after allegedly shooting his wife in her hospital bed, has died, the city Medical Examiner’s office confirmed this morning.

 The Associated Press says that Yagi “apparently committed suicide by hanging.”

Yagi was released last week on $50,000 bail.  The police believed that he originally planned to kill himself.  The hospital, naturally, banned Yagi from the hospital.  Didn’t any of the professionals – legal or medical – involved with the Yagis see this as a possibility?  Did Robert Yagi seem calm, reasonable and rational?

I think it’s important to ask questions about how professionals handled Robert Yagi in light of the continued efforts of assisted suicide/euthanasia advocates to exploit this case.  Shortly before the news of Yagi’s suspected suicide became public, the Honolulu Advertiser published an article which focused on a debate in which some individuals see this case as highlighting a need for more services and support for families facing serious illness.

On the other side of the debate are advocates of legalized assisted suicide and the major spokesperson is an interesting choice in regard to a discussion about “end of life” issues:

Andi van der Voort, board member of the national Final Exit Network and a longtime local advocate of physician-assisted suicide, said Yagi may not have resorted to violence if his wife had the option of taking a prescribed lethal dose of medication.

“If you are terminally ill and you want to terminate your life, I think it’s awful that someone has to shoot you,” she said.

Van der Voort added that she isn’t hopeful a physician-assisted suicide bill will be passed in Hawai’i anytime soon.

Readers of this blog should recognize the name of the Final Exit Network.  It is an organization that believes in encouraging and supporting the suicides of any old, ill or disabled person.

Van der Voort, if I recall correctly, used to blast anyone who accused the pro-assisted suicide advocates in Hawaii of having a broader agenda than allowing assisted suicide for “terminally ill” people.  But that was a few years ago when she was wearing a different organizational hat.  Good to have her affiliation clearly identified now.

I’m really stumped as to how some kind of “right to die” law would be relevant here.  There is no evidence that Yagi’s wife wanted to be killed or to kill herself.  If she didn’t initiate a discussion with her doctor about committing suicide, then how would it come up?  Do van der Voort and others want a law in which doctors themselves bring up the issue of suicide?

Or maybe they’re thinking of a protective element in an assisted suicide statute – requiring doctors to interview patients privately to ask if the person is requesting suicide help is doing it because his or her partner is the one who wants it to be over.  Seriously, I doubt that’s it.  Van der Voort et al are just piling on to see what they can get out of it.

I doubt they want the public to really think what legalization would mean.  It would mean that we’d be counting on the same professionals that failed the Yagis to somehow make sure that patients were protected in a system that now includes lethal medications.

The system – and the professionals within it – failed the Yagis.  I fail to understand how the system and the professionals will suddenly become competent by passage of an assisted suicide bill.  –Stephen Drake