Vermont – Senate Votes Down Latest Attempt at Assisted Suicide Passage

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On Thursday, April 12, the Vermont Senate engaged in a two-hour debate over a provision to legalize assisted suicide that was attached to a bill banning those under 18 from using tanning salons.  After the debate, the Senate voted against allowing the rider to the tanning bill by a vote of 18 to 11.

Here’s some an excerpt from the Burlington Free Press:

(The ‘Miller’ referred to below is Sen. Hinda Miller, who initiated the move to attach the assisted suicide rider to the tanning bill)

So the discussion began.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Sears, D-Bennington, peppered Miller with questions about the legislation, including the impact on a doctor’s role and on suicide rates.

Miller didn’t have any answers. “I do not understand the question,” she said at one point.

“How can we move forward with this bill?” Sears responded.

Senators broke for a recess as Miller looked for help. Sears told colleagues, “When you’re unprepared for the debate you shouldn’t cry foul.”

Miller appealed to Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham. “Can I yield to you?” she asked, meaning White would answer Sears’ questions on the floor.

“Why me?” White answered.

As they returned to the formal session, Sears said he was done with his interrogation. “The point I wanted to make with some of the questions I asked of the senator is merely that there was no testimony,” he said.

One by one, senators took the floor to make their case either for or against the amendment.

As noted at the top, after all arguments were made, the move to allow the amendment/rider stand failed.

One of the most heartening things to read was the editorial in the same edition of the Burlington Free Press:

The legislation to allow assisted suicide, and the practice itself — even with all its safeguards — still raises concerns, concerns grave enough to warrant keeping the bill from becoming law in this state.

The law fundamentally changes the relationship between the medical practitioner and patient. There is an essential difference between a doctor withholding extraordinary measures to prolong life of someone who is near death and becoming an active participant in hastening the end.

There is also the question of oversight. Much meaningful information about assisted suicide would be withheld from the public in the name of privacy. Yet without sufficient information, there is no true public oversight. In its place, we would be asked to take the word of government officials that all is well.

In a matter of life and death, the people are asked to put their blind faith in the same government that has proven itself so inept in safeguarding something far less consequential — money — from embezzlement by public employees.

It’s nice to read something from an editorial board that indicates they’ve read the concerns about ‘safeguards’ and ‘oversight’ – and taken them seriously.

For more information please check out True Dignity Vermont. –Stephen Drake

Huffpo: Excellent Article on Elderly Homicide/Suicide

Elizabeth Maquardt, Huffpo, media coverage, Our News & Commentary Blog, reality check, suicide-homicide

Today’s Huffington Post features an article by Elizabeth Marquardt, who blogs regularly at Family Scholars, which is part of the Institute for American Values.

Ms. Marquardt covers an issue familiar to readers of this blog – the growing and alarming phenomenon of elderly homicide/suicides – older men killing their wives and then killing themselves.  This article brings in some information I haven’t looked at yet and I’ve added to my “books to order” list as a result.

Below is an excerpt from her article – Elderly Murder-Suicide: Should We Praise Old Men Who Kill Their Wives and Themselves? 

A bizarre aspect of these episodes is that reporters, commentators or the killers themselves frequently speak of them as “loving” acts. When a husband (and make no mistake: this is a gendered activity; husbands almost always kill their wives and not the reverse) kills his sick wife and then himself, he is said to act out of compassion or understandable desperation. After their parents’ bodies were found, the shocked Snelling family, looking for meaning in this tragic act, released a statement saying their father acted “out of deep devotion and profound love.”

Please go and read the rest of her article here to let the Huffington Post know you are interested in this topic and what she’s written about it.  –Stephen Drake

Community Remembers Disabled Victims of Domestic Violence

Our News & Commentary Blog

Disability rights advocates in cities across America will be holding vigils this Friday, March 30th to honor the lives of disabled people murdered by their families and caretakers. This nation-wide Day of Mourning is being organized by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network(ASAN) and Not Dead Yet in response to the murder of George Hodgins, a 22-year-old autistic man, and the media coverage that the organizations describe as “sympathetic” to his murderer.

On March 6, George Hodgins was reportedly murdered by his mother in Sunnyvale, California. Elizabeth Hodgins killed herself after fatally shooting her son. The Santa Cruz Sentinel referred to Ms. Hodgins as “a devoted and loving mother.” The Mercury News coverage appeared focused on the stress Hodgins’ mother underwent as a parent of an autistic child. “Some articles asked readers to put themselves in the shoes of the murderer,” said Zoe Gross, a member of ASAN, “but no articles called for empathy for the murder victim, who died knowing that his own parent had chosen to kill him.”

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Wall Street Journal – NDY’s Coleman & Drake Pen Op-ed on Assisted Suicide, Brain Death and Advance Directives

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Today’s (April 6, 2012) edition of the Wall Street Journal features an op-ed by Diane Coleman and Stephen Drake of Not Dead Yet.  It’s titled ‘Second Thoughts’ Grow on Assisted Suicide.”  You can read the first two paragraphs below.  At this time, full access to the article is available only to subscribers of the paper.  We’ll try to get the rest of it out and freely readable at a future date.  Here’s the intro:

An initiative to legalize assisted suicide will be on the November ballot in Massachusetts. Last month, advocates on both sides of the issue testified at a legislative hearing in Boston. Although the debate about assisted suicide is often portrayed as part of the culture war—with typical left-right, pro-con politics—the largest number of witnesses at the hearing were 10 disability-rights advocates who oppose the initiative.

In Massachusetts, the disability advocates call their opposition group “Second Thoughts.” They say that assisted suicide may sound like a good idea at first, but on second thought the risks of mistake, coercion and abuse are too great to warrant legal immunity for doctors or others who assist suicide.

More later….