AP Reporter Does Sloppy and Superficial Job on Battin Story

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The Associated Press presents a challenge to those of us concerned with media coverage. With the growth of electronic media and the downsizing of newsroom staffs, the Associated Press and other wire services play an increasingly dominant role in reporting stories and framing the relevant issues contained in those stories. When they get things wrong, the misinformation spreads like a computer virus.

Criticism of AP coverage isn’t new for us. Two of the four entries on our “Journalists’ Hall of Shame” page are devoted to AP reporters. Chicago Reader columnist Mike Miner and Diversity, Inc. both covered NDY’s complaints regarding the AP-Ipsos poll on Kevorkian and assisted suicide earlier this year.

This latest example of AP reporting isn’t so much about outright misinformation as it is about sloppiness and superficiality.

AP reporter William McCall’s story about the Battin study is making the rounds now in Oregon and Canada. Typically, McCall goes to pro-life sources for criticisms. This is a pattern for McCall who has seldom if ever mentioned disability opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide, even in those cases in which disability groups filed friend of the court briefs, as in Oregon v. Ashcroft and Gonzales v. Oregon.

In this story, McCall’s main source for criticism of Battin and the study comes from quotes lifted from a prolife site. Readers unfamiliar with Alex Schadenberg and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition might assume that it’s a prolife group rather than a broad coalition of people opposed to legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia:

“This is a study that, at best, can be referred to as propaganda,” wrote Alex Schadenberg, head of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, on the http://www.lifenews.com/ Web site.

That’s not the worst of this article, though. McCall touches on the undisclosed author conflict of interest issue when he identifies Death With Dignity National Center as an organization that is devoted to influencing public policy. He leaves the defenses put forth by both Battin and the director of the organization unchallenged. Peg Sandeen, director of DWD National Center, described Battin’s role in the organization as “minimal.”

That description doesn’t survive close scrutiny, at least in terms of her work with DWD board member Tim Quill. As we reported yesterday, Death With Dignity Board Member Tim Quill published a commentary in BMJ that covers some of the same ground as Battin’s study – and refers to it. Clearly, the study was shared with Quill for his effort to “spin” Battin’s study and impact the policy discussion in the medical community in the U.K. Quill didn’t disclose his professional affiliation with Death With Dignity National Center, either.

What else didn’t make it into McCall’s article?

Well, although the Oregon experience with assisted suicide is discussed in glowing detail, there is absolutely no mention of the scandal with the Nursing Review Board and its failure to report two nurses who admit “assisting” in a patient’s suicide. There is no evidence the patient requested this “assistance” and the time delay is so great that there are doubts of a successful prosecution even in regard to assisted suicide charges, let alone a charge of manslaughter or murder. In fact, there is no way of knowing if the case we already know about that the Nursing Board mishandled is an isolated case or the tip of the iceberg. Without real oversight and accountability, there’s no way to know.

McCall could have learned about these things if he’d bothered to call us, as he obviously reached out to Compassion and Choices. He knows who we are. He talked at length with Not Dead Yet president Diane Coleman a couple of years ago. I don’t know why he hasn’t picked up the phone since then to see if we have a new slant or some new information on a story.

Maybe it’s that he already has his story and doesn’t need people like us to mess it up by providing information and perspectives that depart from the established script.

The script? It’s pretty clear here at the end:

Assisted suicide is still opposed by a number of major groups, including the American Medical Association and the Roman Catholic Church.

No room for disability advocates or activists in that cast of characters. –Stephen Drake

Battin, Quill Use “Research” for Political Purposes

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Today’s edition of the Daily Utah Chronicle, the student newspaper of the University of Utah, has yet another story on Battin’s study titled “Assisted suicide not more common for poor.” The reporter contacted us last week, and more of our critique is present in this article:

One argument against physician-assisted suicide is that it will create a “slippery slope” leading to infanticide for deformed babies and that patients will be influenced in their decision by family pressures or the financial costs of treatment.

Critics are questioning the validity of the new study.

Stephen Drake, a research analyst for Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group, argues that the researchers ignore the full definition of “slippery slope” — that euthanasia will eventually extend past whom it was intended for. Drake said for the past few years, the Netherlands have been giving the green light to infanticide.

Battin argues that in the Netherlands, the government hasn’t even made a law concerning infanticide.”In a legal issue the Dutch tolerate, but don’t prosecute a practice immediately — they wait until they can decide where the borders are,” she said.

Drake also argues that the data being collected are “non-verifiable” and are based on what doctors choose to admit.

“We have a variety of data in our study — doctor’s reports and death certificate reports — which doctors can’t lie about,” Battin said.

What’s interesting is that Battin’s “refutations” actually confirm the statements we’ve made. When Battin says that the Dutch “don’t prosecute… until they can decide where the borders are,” she is agreeing with a kind of “slippery slope” approach to euthanasia policy that the Dutch have adopted.

Further, when she says they have a “variety of data” that “doctors can’t lie about” she isn’t denying that much of the data is exactly the kind of non-verifiable information we’ve said it is. And, while I hate to be the one to break the news to her, doctors have been known to lie on death certificates and other medical reports for less than noble reasons.

There’s more…

Kathryn Tucker, legal affairs director at Compassion and Choices, said that the study is an important piece of work and warns others not to put too much credence on arguments made by organizations like Not Dead Yet.

Interesting quote from Tucker. Why shouldn’t others put too much credence on our arguments? Because we’re political and have an established position in this debate? Isn’t the same true of Tucker? Come to think of it, the same is true of Battin.

One last bit from this article…

Battin wouldn’t discuss her opinion on the issue, saying that her view is not relevant to the study.

“Every person has a view about this study, but our research was intended to look for evidence of these 10 groups being vulnerable, not to make a statement on whether it should be legalized or not,” she said.

Methinks the researcher and political advocate doth protest too much.

Although it’s gone virtually unnoticed here in the U.S., last week’s issue of BMJ featured a commentary by Tim Quill. Those familiar with the euthanasia debate know him as a long-time advocate of legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia, and a member of the board of directors of Death With Dignity National Center (Battin serves on the advisory board of this organization). Quill’s advocacy and affiliation are not mentioned in the information attached to his commentary. The title of his commentary is “Physician assisted death in vulnerable populations.” Sound familiar? It should.

Quill’s article discusses various “research” that suits his political objectives, including the research of Battin and her colleagues. It is hard to believe that Quill’s commentary and Battin’s study being published so close in time is coincidental. It looks orchestrated and coordinated.

And it’s political. Britain has been debating legalization of euthanasia and/or assisted suicide for a number of years. It’s been a highly contentious topic within the British Medical Association. Quill’s commentary is obviously meant to have an impact on the public policy debate in the United Kingdom, at least within professional circles.

There’s nothing dishonest or particularly unusual for advance copies of research to get shared with interested colleagues. But it’s disingenuous for Battin and Quill to claim the high ground of academic objectivity while engaging in very direct political action. –Stephen Drake

Addendum: Wesley Smith looked closely at the dates of the submission of the Battin study and its acceptance – looks like the “peer reviewers” were extremely fast readers!

Classic Reads: Libertarian Thomas Szasz Cuts Through the Crap on Assisted Suicide and Kevorkian

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A lot of people who support the idea of the legalization of assisted suicide claim they do so on libertarian grounds. It’s no surprise – libertarians have the same shortage of critical thinkers in their ranks that seems to be the norm across the political spectrum.

Thomas Szasz is one of those exceptionally clear and critical thinkers – whether you agree with him or not. And it’s well worth reading what this man has to say on any number of subjects.

Today, though, I want to highlight a couple of short pieces that help expose some of the hypocrisy in much of the assisted suicide marketing.

For example, in a 2001 Op-Ed titled “Assisted Suicide is Bootleg Suicide” he makes the following points:

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Oregon extended a court order that stops Ashcroft from dismantling the law until the state can prepare arguments defending it. Liberals, who revere medical paternalism, condemn Ashcroft’s move. Yet classic liberals and libertarians who respect the rule of law should applaud it. “Decisions about when and how to die are best left to patients … not legislators,” wrote Jerome Groopman of Harvard.

I agree and wish it were so. The truth is that psychiatrists routinely prescribe involuntary “treatment” for patients whom they consider dangerous to themselves. Physician-assisted suicide laws permit doctors to write prescriptions for lethal drugs under certain circumstances. Supporters of such laws misrepresent them as permitting patients to decide when they want to die.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia proponents have been largely successful in uncoupling the realities of public policy toward suicide from their own advocacy. It’s almost unheard of find an assisted suicide propent asked how they feel about the reality that many people are hospitalized and medicated against their will for “being a danger to themselves.”

In a 2002 Op-Ed titled “Kevorkian Warps the Values He Touts,” Szasz took a critical look at Jack Kevorkian and didn’t like what he saw:

Misleadingly, Kevorkian’s subjects were called “patients.” However, Kevorkian had no license to practice medicine, and the people he “helped” did not come to him to be diagnosed or treated. They came to be killed and often traveled long distances to secure his services. If they could do that, they could have killed themselves by other means. They came to Kevorkian, then, either to obtain lethal drugs to which they had no access but Kevorkian did, albeit illegally; or they came to die by Kevorkian’s hands rather than their own, anxious to depict medical killing as “therapy.” Kevorkian was eager to oblige portraying himself as a heroic fighter for a right to suicide. In his book, “Prescription: Medicide,” Kevorkian stated that “helping suffering or doomed persons to kill themselves . . . is merely . . . a distasteful professional obligation. . . . What I find most satisfying is the prospect of making possible the performance of invaluable experiments or other beneficial acts.”

To the press and the public, Kevorkian represented his activities as a medical obligation, imposed on him by his conscience and medical degree. To make himself appear a medical savior, he falsely diagnosed his “patients” as dying. Eventually, his conceit got the better of him, and he was sent to prison, where be belongs.

We’ll be posting more on Kevorkian over the next couple of weeks, but check out more of what Szasz has to say in the meantime. –Stephen Drake

The Olympian: “Physician-assisted suicide symptom of a broken system,” by Joelle Brouner

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I received news of this excellent op-ed by disability activist Joelle Brouner late yesterday. I reserve my comments for the end of the article.

Published September 28, 2007
Physician-assisted suicide symptom of broken system

Washington state is no place for the Oregon-style legalization of physician-assisted suicide. Many people with whom I frequently see eye to eye disagree with me on this point. They view the issue simply as one of personal choice. They are mistaken because, for many, the only real choice would be death.

When so many people are uninsured or have inadequate access to medical care, who can choose to receive preventive health care? How many can choose to be diagnosed in time to undergo life-saving treatments? It is cruel to beat the drum of choice when so many are effectively left to choose between death and death.

Then there is the matter of pain. Nobody wants to be in pain and nobody should have to be. Advocating death as a solution to pain is extreme and betrays a lack of ingenuity. Pain does not have to be uncontrollable; it can be effectively managed. By enacting progressive drug policy, we would make more effective pain management strategies available to doctors and their patients and assuage their fear of prosecution. Rather than pave the expressway to death, the Legislature could provide incentives for researchers who expedite the development of innovative drugs and pain-management tools.

Physician-assisted suicide is less about choice or pain management than power. If legalized, physician-assisted suicide will inevitably align the power of the state, big money interests and a broken medical system. If the state sanctions the participation of medical professionals in the killing of patients, the matter transcends the individual who dies. We cannot divorce ourselves from policy decisions made in our name. As citizens, we would all be complicit, by extension, in these deliberate deaths.

Even under the best circumstances, people face disadvantages in navigating state and medical systems. Is it reasonable to expect a person to negotiate with these powerful interests at a time when he or she is likely to have the least energy or emotional reserve? These circumstances are ripe for abuse.

Some who support physician-assisted suicide argue that Oregon- style safeguards will prevent abuses. But in Oregon, the records regarding implementation of physician-assisted suicide are destroyed. There is no way to independently audit them. We are left to trust that the records were accurate and the people who recorded them were truthful.

The American medical system has a long record of bias. Disparities in access to care based on race, class and gender are well documented. Is it so great a leap to think that a system with a record of perpetuating bias could abuse its power to promote death as a management strategy to achieve cost savings?

As a person with a life-long disability, I am all too familiar with the institutional power of the modern medical industry. Like many, I have experienced the consequences of being objectified and discredited within that system. Those who are considered inconvenient, who require too many resources, or who fail to meet an arbitrary health standard, are too likely to be the casualties if death passes for compassionate health policy. I fear that death will become the logical expectation of a system that prizes cost savings above people.

Joelle Brouner, a member of The Olympian’s Diversity Panel, is a disability rights activist.

This blog has already addressed multiple examples of the lack of accountability for medical professional professionals in both California and Oregon, something Joelle expresses concerns about in this piece.

I was digging through old articles and found that Joelle might have hit an important point in the State of Washington. There is evidence in her state that an overwhelming number of people wanting to die due to the very pressures she talks about.

In 1997, Joe Shapiro, then an editor of U.S News & World Report, published a long article on what things looked like in the Netherlands and what it might mean for the U.S. in “Euthanasia’s Home.” He shared this interesting factoid about American motivations, specifically citizens of Washington State:

Most Dutch patients–56 percent–seek euthanasia to avoid “useless suffering.” On the other hand, Americans say they are motivated by the fear of burdening their spouses and families: In a study in Washington State, that reason was cited by 75 percent of those who asked physicians to help them die. No wonder. In the United States, hospitalization and nursing home costs can impoverish. The Dutch face virtually no out-of-pocket expenses at the end of life.

Don’t take that to mean that Shapiro didn’t find any problems with euthanasia practices in the Netherlands. His balanced article found several reasons for concern – such as the light hand with which the courts in the Netherlands have used in dealing with the handful of doctors charged with violating euthanasia and assisted suicide protocols.

Read it. The only way to learn from the past is to actually know something about it. –Stephen Drake

Latest Pro-Euthanasia Research Makes Headlines by Redefining Slippery Slope and Use of Soft Data

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Well, big “news” broke yesterday with the announcement of the publication of a study that claims to put an end to any idea of “abuses” under assisted suicide and euthanasia laws in Oregon and the Netherlands, respectively. The lead author is Margaret Battin, who is a long-time advocate of legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia, and is on the advisory board of Death With Dignity National Center. Her advocacy history is mentioned in some articles but not in others. Interestingly, the objectivity of Battin and her colleagues goes unquestioned in the mainstream news reports. I have a hard time imagining the publication of an article with contrary findings by an anti-euthanasia advocate that wouldn’t get challenged harshly on its objectivity.

Many of the articles that have come out since yesterday are little more than reproductions of the press release issued by the University of Utah. This Reuters story by Will Dunham is one such example.

One reporter, Kirsten Stewart of the Salt Lake Tribune actually contacted us for the story she was working on, but “right on deadline.” That means that there was little time to review or process the reports regarding the study to be published in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Luckily, Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition had emailed a copy of the Univ. of Utah press release and his own critique earlier in the day, so I was able to beg a few minutes to look over the points in the release.

Here are the points I made:

So what actually made it into the Salt Lake Trib article? Just this:

Stephen Drake, an analyst at Not Dead Yet, a disabled-rights group opposed to euthanasia, claims the study used “soft” data self-reported by doctors.

Notice that none of the reasons for calling this “soft data” are shared in the article. And nothing about the narrow and idiosyncratic definition of “slippery slope” used by the Battin and her colleagues. Maybe it’s because she was on deadline and she didn’t have time to verify my own claims. But she did have time to get this quick refutation from one of the two pro-assisted suicide advocates (in addition to Battin) quoted in the article:

Proponents of assisted death argue the methodology was peer reviewed.

“It’s the most pre-eminent examination of the data with the slippery slope question in mind,” said Kathryn Tucker, legal affairs director at Compassion & Choices.

For anyone interested in specifics regarding the expansion of euthanasia and the lack of controls there, you can check out our archived copy of “Euthanasia is Out of Control in the Netherlands” which was published as in the “Perspectives” section of the Hastings Center Report in 2005. –Stephen Drake

Addendum: Coincidentally, Beth Haller has written about Not Dead Yet today on the Society for Professional Journalists’ Diversity Blog. Check out what she’s telling reporters about us in “Activist group, Not Dead Yet, can be a significant news source.”

Addendum II: Wesley Smith has additional insight and analysis in Battin Assisted Suicide Report Demonstrates the Vapidity of “Scientific Studies.”