In a submission to a consultation on relaxing the rules on assisted suicide – which ends today – a coaliton of five disabled groups, said that “to see suicide as the right solution is to abandon hope. Severely ill and terminally ill people do no deserve society to give up on them.”

The group, which is lead by Baroness Campbell, accused others who were pushing for the change as “seeking to change the law by the back door by creating the impression that those who assist in a suicide will be immune from prosecution”.

(Note on article – the headline is misleading, making the claim that the “disabled should not be able to kill themselves.” The actual statement is about the actions of family members and friends who facilitate and encourage the suicides of people with disabilities. People who are intent on killing themselves will find a way to do so. Many thousands do so each year – in the US alone.)

Hopefully, the submission document will be available in the near future – either as a document that can be posted here or linked to wherever site it is posted to. –Stephen Drake

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

December 14, 2009"end of life", assisted suicide, final exit network, hawaii, Homicide / 'Mercy Killing', media coverage, Our News & Commentary Blog, suicideStephen Drake

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

More Men in the News – Killing Ailing Wives and Calling it “Mercy”

December 11, 2009hawaii, Homicide / 'Mercy Killing', media coverage, murder, Our News & Commentary Blog, reality checkStephen Drake

Here are a few recent killings that have made news around the country –

New Rochelle man charged with murder in ‘mercy killing’ (NY):

Paul Weinstein told police that an argument with his wife ”set him off“ and that he shot her dead in their New Rochelle home after he failed to suffocate her with a pillow.

Later in the article, he says his wife was “losing it” and that he’d promised to help her kill herself rather than put her in a nursing home or other facility. He has no proof of that, though.

Police cite claim of mercy killing (AZ):

A 56-year-old woman was killed by her husband early Thursday in what police say was intended to be a murder-suicide.

Police received a 911 call at 4:43 a.m. from a 51-year-old man who said he had just killed his wife and then had taken pills in an attempt to take his own life, said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.

While the article is unclear, it appears that he shot his wife and attempted to kill himself through a drug overdose, but called 911 when he apparently changed his mind about killing himself.

Man accused in shooting described as caring (HI)

(Happily, this is a case in which the murder attempt did not succeed)

Seventy-one-year-old Robert Yagi had tended daily to his terminally ill wife’s needs and kept her company since she was hospitalized in October.

Now he faces a charge of attempted murder after allegedly firing a plastic flare gun at her Tuesday night.

A police affidavit filed with the court to support the charge says Yagi “may have tried to end his life at the same time using another loaded orange flare gun” loaded with 12-gauge buckshot.

His wife, Leatrice, suffered only minor injuries when she was shot as she lay in her hospital bed at Castle Medical Center.

This is fairly typical of the cases of successful or attempted murder/suicides seen in elderly people. The perpetrators are men. The women have have significant health issues. There is no evidence that the wives in question wanted to die.

Nevertheless, that didn’t stop a spokesperson for the Hawaii Death with Dignity Society from attempting to exploit this last case of domestic violence to promote his own organization’s agenda:

Scott Foster, spokesman for the Hawaii Death with Dignity Society, believes 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.”

He said Hawaii came close in 2002 to passing a law to allow assisted suicide. The so-called Death with Dignity bill died when three state senators changed their votes at the last minute following intense lobbying by opponents.

So how, exactly does this relate to any legalization of assisted suicide? There is no indication that Yagi’s wife wanted or wants 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 doing what many representatives of pro-euthanasia groups have been doing for years – exploiting cases of domestic violence in which the victim is an elderly, disabled, ill woman by framing them as acts of compassion.

For more information on the research on these types of domestic violence, please read this previous blog entry, in which the research of Professor Donna Cohen is discussed. Interestingly, she gave a presentation at a Compassion and Choices Symposium in October. I cannot think of any excuse for the continued exploitation of these tragedies by assisted suicide/euthanasia advocates after that. –Stephen Drake

Canada: New Pro-Euthanasia Group Misinforms — and Doesn’t Want Anyone to Know Much About Them

December 10, 2009assisted suicide, blog recommendations, Canada, euthanasia, euthanasia prevention coalition, Our News & Commentary Blog, reality checkStephen Drake

From Alex Schadenberg at his blog for the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition:

New Group Misrepresenting Canada’s Euthanasia Law

Excerpt:

I received a call from Stephen Drake, the research director for Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group. Drake asked me whether I knew the group Dignity in Death? I answered no. In fact when I went to the website there was no information about who they actually are, but it did tell me that they either do not understand Canadian law or that they are deliberately misrepresenting the law for their political purpose. Link to Not Dead Yet: http://notdeadyetnewscommentary.blogspot.com/

The website states:

Dignity in Death offers information on voluntary euthanasia and the ethical issues that surround assisted suicide. In Canada, voluntary euthanasia is legal and may be used to end the lives of those who are suffering and terminally ill. However, assisted suicide is illegal.

This new group (read the blog for more info) has launched an ad campaign putting its messages on faux memorial plaques on park benches in Toronto through an ad agency. November and December seem strange months for this kind of campaign, since traffic in parks goes down, benches are often covered in snow and almost no one sits down on them. But it gets stranger – the plaques direct readers to a website:

If there is nothing wrong with euthanasia or assisted suicide, why does the Dignity in Death group need to lie about Canadian law and why does Dignity in Death not have an address or identify the leaders of the group?

It’s really really odd. What kind of group invests in advertising and yet (judging by the lack of info on the website) doesn’t really want anyone to want to know just who is running the group or how to contact them (aside from a general info email address)?

Well, for starters, maybe no one wants to be held accountable for the misinformation that is published on the website (www.deathindignity.com)) or deal with any awkward follow-up questions. –Stephen Drake

Addendum: Alex graciously gave me a cred for the heads-up on this, but the only reason I saw this news was due to an alert sent to me by my friends at the blog “Turner & Kowalski.”

Health Care: “People Like Me” – Ben Mattlin Reflects on Being Disabled and the Health Care Debate

December 1, 2009access to health care, ben mattlin, health care reform, media coverage, Our News & Commentary Blog, policyStephen Drake

Ben Mattlin is a disability activist and writer (he also gets paid for writing outside of the disability arena). I’ve had the privilege of knowing him for over a decade.

He’s authored an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune that reflects the current realities many of us who have disabilities face in the health care system right now. He also shares how so much of the debate around “reform” isn’t convincing to many of us – no matter which side of the political aisle is speaking.

Here’s the intro to “People like me – Is there room in health care for the disabled?“:

Last year, I was rushed to the hospital after a severe gastrointestinal infection became septicemia. I was unconscious, inches away from death, but before the doctors would perform their magic they asked my wife, “Are you sure you want us to do this?”

Actually, they said, “Is he full code?” but it meant the same thing.

It’s hard not to take that personally, and to be more than a little fearful for your life when similar stories get shared around the disability community.

Like me, he’s not real impressed with either end of the political spectrum in the current debate over “reform,” which seldom touches on the realities many of us deal with right here and now:

Every day, lawsuit-wary doctors, many with misguided notions about the quality of life for people with disabilities, and the penny-pinching insurance companies who pay them render judgments about who does and does not receive certain kinds of care. So when the right wing warns about medical rationing as a bleak future possibility, I don’t listen. I and countless others on the margins already feel the squeeze. Could the feds really do a worse job?

On the other hand, when the left wing talks about health care reform as a kind of panacea, I raise a skeptical eyebrow too. There’s more wrong with our current system than Washington can fix. I don’t like the outrageously expensive premiums I pay as a “high risk” customer, but the most galling obstacles I face can’t be easily legislated away.

In the end, like many of the people I know in the disability community, Mattlin figures the reform that might happen is better than nothing – there are some small ways it might help him and others similarly situated and it probably won’t make things worse.

But don’t take my word for that – go read it yourself. –Stephen Drake