Final Exit Advisory Board Members Supporters of Parents Who Kill – Or Want to Kill – Their Disabled Kids

euthanasia, Faye Girsh, final exit network, Homicide / 'Mercy Killing', Our News & Commentary Blog, reality check, tracy latimer
In case you thought that the so-called “right to die” movement was limited to support for voluntary euthanasia, we have some info on related activities of two of the advisory board members of the Final Exit Network. In addition, these two FEN advisors have cosigned an appeal for donations to a defense fund for the arrestees from FEN.

First up is Ruth von Fuchs, whose creds are listed this way on the FEN website:

Ruth von Fuchs, MA
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Founding Network Board Member
President, Right to Die Society of Canada
Member of Network Training Faculty
Board Member, ERGO (Euthanasia and Research Guidance organization)

Canadian disability activists are familiar with Ms. von Fuchs. She has been a vocal defender of Robert Latimer, convicted twice in the 2nd-degree murder of his daughter Tracy. Tracy had cerebral palsy and cognitive disabilities. Part of her defense has entailed treating the parental murders of children as “compassionate” and subject to lesser penalties – or to no prosecution at all. Here is a sample of her “advocacy” in the Latimer case:

Proponents of euthanasia say that, until proper legal and social supports are in place, many people, like Latimer, have to take the law into their own hands. “This law is being written unofficially in emergency rooms and intensive care wards every night,” says Ruth von Fuchs, a member of the Right to Die Society in Toronto. Von Fuchs views Tracy’s death as part of a “continuum” that begins with brain-damaged infants, some so severely handicapped that doctors quietly remove life support within hours of birth. It is unfortunate, she adds, that because mercy killing has been “criminalized,” Latimer felt he had to act alone, without the help of a social worker or medical expert. Von Fuchs, and other members of the euthanasia movement, is calling for a change in attitude to mercy killing. “In our society, we forbid people to give up,” she argues. “We say, ‘Never say die,’ but sometimes you have to stand back and realize that really is a cliché. We cannot fix everyone every time forever.”

Faye Girsh is another advisory board member of FEN – and one with a history of defending NONvoluntary killing of kids with disabilities and elderly people with alzheimers. Here is the info for Girsh as it’s featured on the FEN website:

Faye Girsh, EdD.,
Sr. Advisor LaJolla, CA
Founding Network Board Member
Exit Guide and Network spokesperson
Board member/editor, World Federation of Right to Die Societies
Former president of The Hemlock Society USA

Those of us who have been in the euthanasia struggle for over a decade are very familiar with just how wide an agenda Girsh advocates. On December 3, 1997 the Hemlock Society (now Compassion and Choices) issued a press release titled: “Mercy Killing: A Position Statement Regarding David Rodriguez.” The release is almost entirely composed of one long statement by Girsh, who was executive director of the Hemlock Society at the time. I don’t have a link to the press release. After reading it, no one will be surprised that the Hemlock Society and its successor organization (Compassion and Choices) prefer to pretend this document never existed. Those of us who received the press release in our electronic newsfeeds made sure to save our copies. Here it is below, in its entirety (with portions emphasized by me):

Mercy Killing: A Position Statement Regarding David Rodriguez

DENVER, Dec. 3 /PRNewswire/ — The following statement is issued to Louisiana media by Faye Girsh, executive director of the Hemlock Society USA, the nation’s oldest and largest right-to-die society, regarding the David Rodriguez case:

“The Hemlock Society USA advocates that a suffering person at the end of life should be able to receive compassionate help from a physician to end his or her life if that is the wish. This should be done lawfully and under conditions which ensure that the diagnosis is correct, the request is an enduring one, and that the person is mentally competent.”

“Unfortunately, our proposal has been enacted as law in only one state — Oregon. Even with such a law, there are many people suffering from chronic and terminal illnesses who either beg to have their lives ended or who are not competent to make this decision and are in those instances assisted to die by a loved one. In a few rare instances death has come this way with the help of a friend, family member, or physician. In Louisiana, David Rodriguez shot his father who had repeatedly begged to be killed so that he would no longer suffer. Cases such as this are prosecuted either under murder or assisted suicide statutes. Juries, who see these as crimes of compassion, are at a loss to render a just and appropriate verdict under existing law.”

“We suggest that, if these cases are to be prosecuted, they should be treated as special crimes of compassion and evaluated separately. The criteria might include the person’s wishes to die, the person’s medical condition, the family’s concurrence, the alternatives available, and the motives of the person being tried. In many of these cases the person who did the killing is a distraught family member who is put through the horrors and expense of a humiliating criminal process that eventuates in probation or a suspended sentence. There should be a way which would still protect innocent people from being murdered but also take into consideration that mercy
killing is not a cold-blooded, malicious crime but one in which the motivation is kindness and relief of suffering.”

“In the case of a minor or an incompetent adult, the law now allows life or death decisions to be made by a designated health care agent and/or a family member in most jurisdictions. If the Rodriguez death had been the result of a decision to forego life-sustaining medical treatment no criminal liability would have ensued. In such instances, the person “dies naturally.”

Some provision should be made for a situation in which life is not being sustained by artificial means but, in the belief of the patient or his agent, is too burdensome to continue. It is pathetic that a son should have to shoot a suffering father. Death should come in a more humane and less violent way.”

“A judicial determination should be made when it is necessary to hasten the death of an individual whether it be a demented parent, a suffering, severely disable (sic) spouse or a child. Consultants should evaluate what other ways might be used to alleviate the suffering and, if none are available or are unsuccessful, a non-violent, gentle means should be available to end the person’s life.”

“As life expectancy increases, chronic diseases proliferate and medical science can lengthen life almost indefinitely. We must find ways to provide help to people who wish to hasten the dying process. Clearly the popular sentiment is not to punish and incarcerate but to provide merciful alternatives for those who act out of love.”

SOURCE Hemlock Society USA
12/03/97 /CONTACT: Don Blake of Hemlock Society USA, 800-247-7421

So if anyone thought that the latest episode with FEN and its advocacy of “facilitating” deaths of NONterminally ill people was as far out as this movement goes – you ain’t seen nothing yet. Not only is the “advocacy” of zealots of Girsh and von Fuchs broader than terminal — the idea of “voluntary” is somewhat quaint in that weird mental world they live in. –Stephen Drake

NY Times on Final Exit Network – NDY Quote

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Today’s NY Times includes a story on the Final Exit Network (FEN) by Robbie Brown titled “Arrests Draw New Attention to Assisted Suicide.”

The article’s strongest point is that it clearly states the allegations by an agent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation posing as a man with cancer wanting the group’s assistance in planning his suicide:

According to the agent’s affidavit, network members instructed him to buy a helium tank and a plastic “exit mask.”

Thomas E. Goodwin, who was the network president at the time, and Claire Blehr, a member, planned to hold down the agent’s hands while helium flowed into the mask, the affidavit says.

The agent would lose consciousness within seconds and die within minutes, and the guides would remove evidence from the scene.

“They went through a dry run just to let the agent know what would happen,” Mr. Bankhead said. “Mr. Goodwin got on top of the agent and held down both of his hands,” which investigators say would have prevented him from removing the mask if he had changed his mind during a real suicide.

A passing mention is made of the group’s willingness to give “assistance” to people who are “incurably ill” and “suffering.”

The matter drops there, though, leaving the representatives of pro-assisted suicide groups free to criticize the “underground” nature of the activities of FEN.

For what it’s worth, here’s my contribution, lifted out of about 20 minutes of conversation with the reporter:

“These are people who instead of pulling you back from the ledge, they shove you off,” said Stephen Drake, a research analyst for Not Dead Yet, an advocacy group for the disabled that opposes assisted suicide. “Legally, we may not know what this means. But in a personal sense, it can mean the difference between life and death.”

I recall having more to say than that – about the widespread support within pro-assisted suicide advocacy organizations for broader “eligibility” – but that isn’t the kind of approach this particular reporter – or any reporter so far – had in mind. –Stephen Drake

Final Exit Network, Zealotry and Groupthink

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The latest story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution centers on Dr. Lawrence Egbert, the “medical director” of Final Exit Network (FEN). According to the AJC, Egbert’s own words describe him as some sort of Bizarro-world version of Will Rogers, who said “I never met a man I didn’t like.”

In the Bizarro world of Egbert and company, it runs like this: “I (almost) never saw a suicide plea from someone who didn’t deserve to die.”

From the article:

As medical director and co-founder of the Georgia-based Final Exit Network, Egbert in the past four years approved the applications of people who wanted to die because they were diagnosed with terminal cancer.

He approved the applications of people who wanted to die because their bodies were wasting away with ALS or multiple sclerosis.

He approved the applications of people who had not been diagnosed as terminally ill but whose quality of life, in their mind, was no longer worth living.

Egbert, an 81-year-old Baltimore anesthesiologist and teacher affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in an interview Friday that there were times when he rejected people who wanted to die, “but not very frequently.”

Of course, the allegations from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation go beyond simply providing information and “being there.”:

The GBI says the group has a pattern of assisting people in suicides in which a “hood” is lowered over the person’s face, and the person breathes helium until losing consciousness. Death can take 10 or 20 minutes longer.

The GBI alleges that the group breaks state law by holding the hands of the person to prevent struggle or removal of the hood.

There’s no word yet as to whether or not the GBI has this on tape, which is a common practice in “sting” operations.

Friends and sympathizers reject the notion that members of FEN could ever have actively prevented someone from taking the “exit bag” off.

Yet, out of at least 200 (Egbert admits to this) suicides, there apparently hasn’t been one single case in which a person changed their mind – rejecting the feeling of suffocation and claustrophobia. Not one. If there had been one, that person would have needed immediate medical attention. There would be no time to get rid of evidence – paraphernalia, fingerprints, etc. before the paramedics arrived. There sure would be a lot of unpleasant questions to deal with – and possibly a civil suit by the family if brain damage occurred.

But that is pretty cynical and self-serving motivation. It’s easy enough for those of us who don’t think much of the ethics of pro-euthanasia/assisted suicide activists to believe members of FEN would slide from “assistance” to “murder.”

But most people probably don’t feel that way. It’s unthinkable, many would say, that intelligent and ethical people could let their behavior lapse so badly.

Guess what. It’s not unthinkable at all. In fact there’s a name for the phenomenon in which intelligent and ethical individuals – as members of a tightly knit group – can do stupid and unethical things.

It’s called groupthink – originally studied and defined by psychologist Irving Janis. It’s a fascinating and complex topic, with some real-world examples.

Janis identified eight symptoms that put a group of individuals at risk for falling into groupthink:

  1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
  2. Rationalising warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
  3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
  4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
  5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
  6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
  7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
  8. Mindguards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.

Afte years of operating without any consequences, it’s easy to see how FEN members could have developed a feedling of invulnerability. Anyone who has lurked on Derek Humphry’s (Humphry is an advisor to FEN) email list or engaged the most zealous euthanasia supporters has encountered the symptoms covered in numbers 2-4 firsthand. Number 5 has played out on Derek Humphry’s email list several times – most notably when one member suggested that Jack Kevorkian’s activities in assisted suicide might have been reckless and irresponsible. Seeing that kind of thing play out makes it quite possible that there is at least some degree of self-censorship going on within the movement to avoid the dogpiling that occurred in the Kevorkian episode. That, of course, leads to the illusion of unanimity. While it’s impossible to know if there were “mindguards” in FEN itself, Humphry is pretty careful in handpicking information sent out to his list, highlighting news items that reinforce the “rightness” of his cause and framing the opponents as opportunists and/or religious zealots.

So, even starting from the highly questionable assumption that FEN members are moral and ethical people, they operate in a world that is geared toward the erosion of those aspects of their character in favor of group cohesion, loyalty and self-preservation. –Stephen Drake

Satire from “The Spoof” – Brit couple go for euthanasia

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A couple of items are needed to introduce this latest send-up from The Spoof, a web-based publication devoted to satire.

First, there is a current story about a real-life couple from Britain who went to Switzerland and got “put down” together.

Second, this isn’t the first time we’ve featured an article from The Spoof. In January of this year, we featured another one in a similar vein – by the same author.

Here’s the latest – I’m really find of the names chosen for the couple in this one:

Brit couple go for euthanasia

Written by MonkeyInTheBath

An elderly couple have the unique privilege of being the first married pair to have themselves euthanased together. If only they had lived to see it, they would have been proud to have seen their glorious deaths emblazoned all over the papers.

Mr and Mrs Notdeadyet were Satanists, but were described by neighbours as “not very quiet actually”.

A family friend refused to speak to me, but via an exclusive phone-tapping operation, it was found that they were terminally ill. Both Mr and Mrs Notdeadyet had a “rather bad” cold and could not cope with the “constant sniffling” and “ticklish cough”, so they decided that it would be for the best that they terminated their existence before the terrible illness preventing them from living their lives.

In an ironic twist, Mr and Mrs Notdeadyet’s regular lottery numbers came up this week.

They must have misunderstood the omens indicating that “their number was up.” –Stephen Drake

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Columnist Asks All the Wrong Questions About Lessons to be Learned from Final Exit Network

assisted suicide, James T. Hall, Larry McAfee, media coverage, media issues, Our News & Commentary Blog, reality check

It’s hard to know just where to begin with the pile of mush published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday by columnist Jay Bookman.

“Time to pull suicide debate out of the shadows” starts out promisingly enough, accurately describes the practices and “eligibility” criteria necessary to get “help” from Final Exit Network. That puts him way ahead of Time magazine, for example, but that is a particularly low bar to clear.

Having summarized the story of the arrests, investigations with a degree of competence, Bookman veers into territory loaded with his own personal prejudices and baggage:

For example, do my inalienable rights as a human being extend to the right to self-destruction? If my life is truly my own, shouldn’t I be able to end it as I see fit?

Personally, I think the answer is almost always no. Societal consensus, backed by medical research and experience, dictates that a person in decent physical health who wants to commit suicide is by definition mentally ill — no fully sane person would make such a decision.

But how far does that line of reasoning extend? As a person’s physical health declines, that once-bright line begins to blur for many of us.

OK, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see where he’s headed with this, right? Ignoring the fact that the vast majority of old, ill and disabled people don’t want to kill themselves, he feels it’s somehow more rational when they do feel that way. He also buys into the overmedicalized view of suicide as a symptom of mental illness, rather than resulting to a state of despair or a loss of one’s feeling of worth. These latter factors tend to be brought on by failures in our social support networks.

He continues with a story:

During the Terri Schiavo controversy, for example, I stumbled across the case of David Mack, a Milwaukee police officer who had been shot in the line of duty and lapsed into a vegetative state.

Twenty months later, Mack miraculously returned to consciousness only to be horrified at his predicament. The shooting had left him totally paralyzed; he could communicate only by moving his eyes across a spelling board. He told his wife that he wished the bullet had killed him. He begged for a lethal injection or for feedings to stop.

Using the spelling board, he would send the same message over and over:

“I D-O-N-T W-A-N-T T-O L-I-V-E L-I-K-E T-H-I-S A-N-Y-M-O-R-E.”

He lived another five years.

In Mack’s case, like that of Schiavo, medical advances made it possible to artificially extend physical existence without extending the other aspects of life that give existence meaning.

So was Mack’s wish to die evidence of mental illness? No, it was an act of sanity. But we as a society refused him his final wish. He had been shot bravely protecting us, but we did not return that bravery by protecting Mack. By insisting that he live, we protected ourselves from a tough decision, but not him.

Legally, politically and emotionally, it is easier to simply deny suicide as a valid option in every case, even if it leads to inhuman and immoral outcomes. That approach forces real-life decisions to be made in the shadows, hidden from sight — back to the averted glance and whispered word.

But it also gives groups such as Final Exit the ambiguity they need to thrive.

First of all, Bookman is leaving something out here, either for simplicity’s sake or he doesn’t know and didn’t care enough to find out.

Bookman fails to tell us how Mack was “forced” to live for five years. Presumably, he was dependent on technology. He could have had his ventilator withdrawn, if he was using one. He could have refused to eat or asked for his feeding tube to be pulled. He had those rights but didn’t exercise them? Why? Did his family ask him not to do it? Was he ambivalent? Was he maybe waiting for some kind of support that could make his situation more bearable? There has to be an explanation for those five years – but Bookman isn’t sharing that with us.

That “right” to refusal of life-saving measures in Georgia is absolute – and established in the case of Larry McAfee case back in the late 1980s. McAfee was a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic who lived on his own for a period of time post-injury. He expressed no desire to die while he was living in the community. However, financial setbacks forced him into being bounced between nursing homes and hospital units, devoid of any control over his life. At this point, McAfee sued to have his ventilator shut off with a time-delayed switch he designed himself that he could operate himself.

McAfee, who had no help in trying to get out of institutional settings, suddenly found himself overwhelmed with “help,” understanding that of course this man would want to die. Disability activists, called “meddlers” at the time, opposed his suit. McAfee won his “right to die,” but chose not to. Those “meddlers” in the disability community were able to find another living situation. McAfee moved out into the community, and lived for several more years until he died of natural causes.

And what of people with even more significant disabilities than McAfee’s?

I have a story to match Mack’s typed message. It’s from the story of James T. Hall, who developed what is known as “locked-in syndrome” as a result of a rare type of stroke. As Hall lay in his hospital bed, two friends worked to establish a communication system with him, while an impatient and unbelieving hospital staff pushed to implement the treatment withdrawal provisions of his living will:

The therapist said, “I have been authorized to make a final determination here. Why don’t we use the plastic spellboard approved by my department? The question is `Do you want to live?’” He thrust it in front of James’ face.

Bill moved to the therapist’s side. “Good,” Bill said. “You hold the board, and I will use the pointer. Is this the group of letters you are looking at, James? Good. Now, is this letter to which I am pointing the one you want?” James’ eyes were floating around as he blinked. “No. This one? No. How about this one?” For a second, James’ eyes seemed to focus. “Yes, it is the letter I.”

The next letter was D. The message was supposed to be “I want to live.”

I was thinking, “Why doesn’t Bill fake it, help James to stay with the message? Yes, Bill is trying to suggest W, but James keeps bringing him back to D. This is not the time to get confused, James.”

The next letter was E.

The next letter was M, then A. I D E M A—30 minutes spent on just five letters already. Time was running out.

Then N, then D. I DEMAND. Come on, James, don’t try to be smart.

Then T and O. Then L and I and V and E. I DEMAND TO LIVE.

But more letters were coming: an A, an S, another S.

The next letter was an H, then and O an an L….

The therapist dropped the board.

Bill picked it up and said, “Let’s see what the next letter is.” E.

I DEMAND TO LIVE ASSHOLE.

Just goes to show that not everyone reacts the way Bookman and other “reasonable” people might expect them to.

As for the conclusion of Bookman’s essay, this is just a variation of the arguments that have suggested a lack of laws such as those on the books in Oregon and Washington would somehow eliminate the “need” for the death groupies at Final Exit Network.

There’s a concept called “critical analysis” and if you try to apply the concept, Bookman’s suggestion shatters. As long as there is a system saying some people are “eligible” and some people “ineligible” for assistance in suicide, there will always be people who were denied “help” who feel they were entitled.

And there will no doubt be members of Final Exit Network – or some successor organization – who will be more than ready to agree with them and provide “help.” No matter what those claims of a needed and rational suicide happen to be. The only thing we can know for sure is that the person they’ll be most likely to agree with will be old, ill, disabled – or all three. –Stephen Drake