…. The week has, from my somewhat skewed vantage, been dominated by suicide news – but not by news dealing with prevention. For example, yesterday Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley certified an initiative petition for the “Death with Dignity Act” (aka “make assisted suicide legal act”). We’ll write more about that later, but the certification allows the petitioners to gather signatures; if successful in meeting the quota, the initiative…
…ury, people with conditions such as kidney failure or heart failure died abruptly but today they may live for many years – for most of the time quite well. Throughout history, cancer was a brief illness. We are now able to cure nearly 60% of cancers and many cancers we cannot also become conditions that people can live with, often for many months if not years. For all the progress and power of medicine, we have yet to make even one person immortal…
…d that Yagi was trying to end his wife’s suffering: “When I saw it (on the news), I knew exactly what I was hearing,” he said. “We hear it all the time all over the world, rich people, poor people, people in pain, people suffering.” There is no indication that Yagi’s wife wanted to be killed. Or does Mr. Foster believe there should be some sort of law allowing caregivers to order the euthanasia of their spouse or child? In fact, Foster is just doi…
…tedly claiming Kevorkian had less than a year to live, Jack Kevorkian died today at the age of 83. Today, speaking from their office in Rochester, NY, two spokespersons for the grassroots disability rights organization Not Dead Yet made the following statements: “While it may be culturally correct to refrain from speaking ill of the dead, the fact is that like many other disability activists, I viewed Kevorkian as an opportunist and an exploiter o…
…report.pdf [27] Autopsy Cutbacks Reveal “Gray Homicides”: http://canhr.org/newsroom/canhrnewsarchive/2011/NPR20110205.html [28] 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq. [29] See e.g., Not Dead Yet et al. brief in Gonzales v. Oregon (http://notdeadyet.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/gonzales.html) and Morris v. Brandenburg (http://notdeadyet.org/ndy-et-al-amicus-brief-in-new-mexico-supreme-court-in-morris-v-brandenburg) [30] Medical Futility in End-of-Life Care,…
