MP Albrecht condemns U.S. court ruling on teen’s suicide

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/6213725-mp-albrecht-condemns-u-s-court-ruling-on-teen-s-suicide/
              

Waterloo Region Record

By Johanna Weidner

Nadia Kajouji embraced
by her father 

KITCHENER — Local MP Harold Albrecht criticized a U.S. court ruling that overturned the conviction of a man charged with encouraging a Brampton teen to take her own life.

William Melchert-Dinkel, a former nurse from Minnesota, was convicted in 2014 of attempting to assist the suicide of 18-year-old Nadia Kajouji, who died after jumping into the Rideau River in Ottawa in 2008.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled Monday there wasn't enough evidence to uphold the conviction in the Carleton University student's death.

Quick Facts About Assisted Suicide

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

For a pdf version, please click here

1.  Assisted Suicide

Assisted suicide means that someone provides the means and/or information for another person to commit suicide. When a physician is involved, the practice is physician-assisted suicide.

2. The Oregon and Washington Laws

In Oregon, physician-assisted suicide was legalized in 1997 via a ballot measure. In Washington State, a similar law was passed by another ballot measure in 2008 and went into effect in 2009.

3.  Problems With Legalization

The Oregon and Washington laws are a recipe for elder abuse and encourage people with years to live to throw away their lives. In Oregon, there are documented cases of the Oregon Heath Plan (Medicaid) steering patients to physician-assisted suicide via coverage incentives. Oregon’s conventional suicide rate has increased with legalization of assisted suicide, which is consistent with a suicide contagion. Patients and families are traumatized.

The Oregon and Washington laws require the death certificate to be falsified to reflect a natural death via a terminal disease, as opposed to the actual cause of death, a lethal dose. The significance is a lack of transparency and an inability to take legal action against overreaching parties.