…I have on a yellow turtleneck sweater. On December 19th, we got some great news. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that people do not have a constitutional right to assisted suicide. This ruling came out of Kligler v Healy, a case initially filed in 2016 in which Dr. Robert Kligler, a cancer patient, and Dr. Allen Steinbach, a physician, argued that assisted suicide could not be prosecuted as involuntary manslaughter and that doctors…
…of consent or self-administration at the time of ingestion of the lethal drugs. If the drugs were, in some cases, administered by others without consent, no one would know. The request form constitutes a virtual blanket of legal immunity covering all participants in the process based on a mere claim of “good faith.” Essentially, proponents of legalizing assisted suicide have taken a third-party legal immunity statute and marketed it deceptively a…
…of this analysis, go HERE.] Endnotes: [1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/11/diabetics-eligible-physician-assisted-suicide-oreg/; https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xOZfLFrvuQcazZfFudEncpzp2b18NrUo/view [2] https://dredf.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Revised-OR-WA-Abuses.pdf [3] https://dredf.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Hendin-Foley-Michigan-Law-Review.pdf [4] https://www.oregon.gov/oha/ph/providerpartnerresources/evaluationresear…
…ilities (see written statement below). The first coverage appeared on WXXI News: Opponents, including some advocacy groups for people with disabilities, said they fear the measure could be abused. Alex Thompson with the New York Association of Independent Living said people with disabilities are sometimes misdiagnosed by doctors. He said he worries that could lead some to take their own lives based on an inaccurate prognosis. “One of the major iss…
…that her brain was still functioning and ignored the possibility that the drug overdose was inhibiting primitive reflexes. (6) Equally shocking was the case of Ruben Navarro, a young man disabled by a neurological disorder, who did not die immediately when his ventilator was removed, but died eight hours later after his body was flooded with drugs and the antiseptic Betadine in preparation for organ donation. Although the surgeon involved was late…
