Judge rules against legalizing assisted suicide in Tennessee

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/davidson%20/2015/09/29/judge-rules-against-tn-assisted-suicide/73048034/

Lucas L. Johnson II, Associated Press, and Stacey Barchenger, The Tennessean6:12 p.m. CDT September 29, 2015

A former Democratic gubernatorial candidate who is terminally ill cannot die by assisted suicide, a judge ruled Tuesday, saying doctors engaging in such a practice are committing "criminal conduct."

John Jay Hooker has terminal cancer and has doctors who have expressed a willingness to prescribe him a lethal dosage of painkillers.

Why California's ABX2-15 Must be Vetoed.

ABX2-15 seeks to legalize physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in California. The bill is a recipe for elder abuse in which a "qualifying" individual may be legally murdered for the money. For more detail, see this memorandum and its attachments.  

KEY POINTS

1. ABX2-15 applies to people with a "terminal disease," which is defined as having a medical prognosis of less than six months to live. (Memo, p.9). Such persons can, in fact, have years, even decades, to live. The more obvious reasons being misdiagnosis and the fact that predicting life expectancy is not an exact science. (Id., pp. 11-12). Doctors can sometimes be widely wrong. (Id.).

2. In Oregon, which has a nearly identical definition of “terminal disease,” eligible persons include young adults with chronic conditions such as insulin dependent diabetes. (Memo, p. 9-11). Such persons, with appropriate medical care, can have years, even decades, to live. 

3. ABX2-15 allows the patient's heir, who will financially benefit from his/her death, to actively participate in signing the patient up for the lethal dose. (Memo, p. 7). This is an extreme conflict of interest.

4. Once the lethal dose is issued by the pharmacy, there is no oversight. Not even a witness is required when the lethal dose is administered. If the patient protested or even struggled against administration, who would know? (Memo, pp. 8-9).

5. Assisted suicide can be traumatic for family members as well as patients. (Memo., pp. 12-13)

6. If California follows Washington State, the death certificate is required to be falsified to reflect a natural death. (Memo, pp. 16-18). The significance is a lack of transparency and an inability to prosecute for murder even in a case of outright murder for the money. Id. 

California: Contact the Governor now to stop assisted suicide/euthanasia.

Outright Lies to Trusting Legislators Gets California Bill to Governor's Desk.  Tell Jerry Brown to Veto ABX2-15 Now! 

• Call 916-445-2841!
• Fax 916-558-3160 
• Use this form to send an e-mail to Governor Brown:  https://govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php  (US Mail will be too slow)

On Friday, September 11th, ABX2-15 passed the Senate just weeks after its initial introduction during a special session called for another purpose. During its short and expedited life, proponents ran roughshod on the facts to induce busy legislators to vote yes. This was evident during the final floor debate in the Senate where proponents repeatedly stated or implied the following, which are not true:

1.  That the bill is limited to people who are actively dying and in pain. The bill doesn't say this anywhere. The bill, instead, applies to people with a "terminal disease" defined as having a prediction of less than six months to live. (Memo, pp.9 -12). Such persons can, in fact, have years, even decades, to live.  (Id.) In Oregon, which has a nearly identical definition, "eligible" persons include young adults with chronic conditions such as insulin dependent diabetes. (Id).

2.  That the bill is "one of the strongest bills regarding patient protections." The bill, however, doesn't even require a witness when the lethal dose is administered.[1] If the patient protested or struggled, who would know?[2] In addition, the bill's various legal "requirements" are not actually "required." This is because participants are merely held to a "good faith" standard.[3] This standard is not defined in the bill, but common meanings include that participants need not comply with legal technicalities when they have honest intent.  See, for example, this legal dictionary definition:

[Good faith means] honest intent to act without taking an unfair advantage over another person or to fufill a promise to act, even when some legal technicality is not fulfilled.  (Emphasis added).[4] 

For these and other reasons, tell Jerry Brown to veto ABX2-15. For more information, see: Dore letter discussing why the Baker amendments did not fix the bill's problems; Dore memo why the financial cost of ABX2-15 could be "enormous"; and a formal memo regarding the bill generally, including "key points," an index, aformal memo and an appendix.

* * *
[1]  See ABX2-15 in its entirety.
[2]  Id.
[3]  ABX2-15, Sections 443.19(d), 443.14(b), 443.14(d)(1) and 443.15(c).
[4]  "Hill" citation at http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/good+faith

Governor Brown must veto assisted suicide legislation.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                           
September 11, 2015        

Contact: Margaret Dore
206-697-1217

Sacramento, CA -- In light of today's final passage of assisted suicide legislation by the California State Senate, a national expert on assisted suicide and euthanasia made the following comments. 

"The legislation passed today is a wolf in sheep's clothing," said Margaret Dore, president of Choice is an Illusion, regarding ABX2-15, which seeks to legalize physician-assisted suicide (and euthanasia) in California. "The bill is deceptively written to make it look as if there are substantial patient protections; there are not. The bill is sold as giving people choice and control at the end of life: Instead, it's stacked against the patient and applies to people with years, even decades, to live."

"In my law practice, I started out working in guardianships, wills and probate, and saw abuse of all kinds, especially where there was money involved (where there's a will, there are heirs)," Dore explained. "ABX2-15 sets up the perfect crime: your heir can actively participate in signing you up for the lethal dose and once the lethal dose is in the home, there's no oversight --not even a witness is required. If you resisted or even struggled, who would know?"

Dore concluded, "The ball is now in the governor's court to protect the people of California by vetoing ABX2-15. As a lawyer and a former attorney general, Jerry Brown has the expertise to see the bill for what it really is.  He has all the right reasons to veto this deceptive and unsafe legislation.

For documentation, see www.choiceillusion.org and www.californiaagainstassistedsuicide.org

California Assisted Suicide Bill Narrowly Passes Assembly.

NEWS RELEASE

For the original print version, please click here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 9, 2015

Contact: Margaret Dore
206-697-1217

Sacramento, CA – In light of today’s narrow passage of assisted suicide legislation by the California State Assembly, a national expert on assisted suicide and euthanasia points out a fundamental flaw with today’s floor debate.

“The assemblymembers didn’t focus on the bill’s language,” said Margaret Dore, president of Choice is an Illusion, regarding ABX2-15, which is modeled on similar laws in Oregon and Washington State.  "The bill is sold as giving people choice and control at the end of life. Yet the bill’s language is stacked against the patient and applies to people with years, even decades, to live.”

No on ABX2-15: Voices Against Assisted-Suicide!

1. Carolyn McMurray:"Not everyone has family members to protect them."

2.  Will Johnston, MD, "[My] young adult patient became actively suicidal after watching a Brittany Maynard video.”

3.   Oregon doctor, Kenneth Stevens, MD, "Vote against ABX2-15, in order to save people’s lives!"

4. Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA (“Legal assisted-suicide can be traumatic for patients and tear families apart”).

5. Kate Kelly (“Doctors are already abusing the power they have").

6. Elizabeth Poiana (“Older people are no longer valued”)

Carolyn McMurray:"Not everyone has family members to protect them."

Dear Assemblymembers:

My husband and I recently moved from Vermont because we fear growing old in a state with legal assisted suicide.

Will Johnston, MD: "[My] young adult patient became actively suicidal after watching a Brittany Maynard video.”

Dear Assemblymembers:

I am a doctor whose young adult patient became actively suicidal after watching a  Brittany Maynard video.

I urge you to vote against legalizing assisted suicide so as to not encourage other young adults to seek this path.  

In the first week of December 2014, a mother brought in her twenty year old son for an emergency appointment.  She had told me that he had been acting oddly and talking about death.

Oregon Doctor Kenneth Stevens: "Vote against ABX2-15, in order to save people’s lives.”

Dear Assemblymembers:

I have been a cancer doctor in Oregon for 49 years.  I am opposed to legalized assisted suicide.

It encourages people to prematurely throw away their lives. The California bill ABX-15 is modeled after the Oregon law. It applies to people predicted to have less than six months to live.  That does not necessarily mean that they are dying.

Fifteen years ago I had a patient with inoperable anal cancer who wanted assisted suicide for herself, and who was refusing radiation and chemotherapy.  Because she was refusing treatment she was eligible for assisted suicide.  I encouraged her to be treated, which she later agreed to, and now she is very alive and happy 15 years later.

Dore: "Legal assisted-suicide can be traumatic for patients and tear families apart”

Dear Assemblymembers:

I am a lawyer in Washington State where assisted-suicide is legal. Our law is similar to a law in Oregon. Both laws are similar to ABX2-15, scheduled for hearing tomorrow.

I had two clients whose fathers signed up for assisted-suicide. In the first case, one side of the family wanted the father to take the lethal dose, while the other did not. The father spent the last months of his life caught in the middle and traumatized over whether or not he should kill himself. My client, his adult daughter, was also traumatized. The father did not take the lethal dose and died a natural death.

In the other case, it's not clear that administration of the lethal dose was voluntary. A man who was present told my client that the client’s father refused to take the lethal dose when it was delivered (“You’re not killing me. I’m going to bed”), but then he took it the next night when he was high on alcohol.

Legal assisted-suicide can be traumatic for patients and tear families apart.

Kate Kelly: “Doctors are already abusing the power they have."

Dear Assemblymembers:

Please vote "No"on ABX2-15 (assisted suicide/euthanasia). Doctors are already abusing the power they have.  This bill, which will give doctors even more power to medically kill patients, can only make a bad situation worse.

In 2009, my mother died after a young doctor encouraged my brother, who held power of attorney, to begin “comfort care.”  My mother, who was NOT DYING, had had a mild stroke.  She had been trying to speak and had indicated that she would like some water.  Instead, on the order of this doctor, she was medically killed  (starved and dehydrated, with massive doses of morphine).

In that same year, I published my mother’s story . Since then, I have been contacted by other adult children in the US and Canada whose parents were  involuntarily killed via starvation, dehydration and overdose..

These involuntary deaths of people who were not dying are not isolated incidents.

Elizabeth Poiana to California Assembly: "“Older people are no longer valued.”

Dear Assemblymembers:

I am a college student in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal.

My mother is a caregiver.  I also  work as a caregiver for typically older people.

I am writing to tell you about how older people are now at risk in Washington State, from doctors and hospitals. I will also talk about how attitudes about older people have changed for the worse.  This is especially true since our assisted-suicide law was passed in 2008.

Updated California Materials Against ABX2-15

To view new materials against ABX2-15, seeking to legalize physician-assisted suicide, click here.

If the document is "too big," click here and here for the memo and its appendix as separate documents.

Overview 

ABX2-15, the “End of Life Option Act,” seeking to legalize physician-assisted suicide in California is a recipe for elder abuse.  The bill is not limited to people who are dying.  Indeed, “eligible” persons can have years, even decades, to live.

In Oregon, which has a similar law, that state’s Medicaid program uses coverage incentives to steer people to suicide.  If ABX2-15 is enacted, California’s Medicaid program, as well as private insurers, will be able to engage in this same conduct.  Do you want this to happen to you or your family?

The bill has a myriad of other problems.  Please vote “No” on ABX2-15.

Prosecutor Press Release on FEN Sentencing in Minnesota; Charges Still Pending.

Final Exit Network, Inc. Sentenced in Assisting with Suicide.

8/24/15 

Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom announced that Final Exit Network, Inc. (FEN) was sentenced today by Judge Christian Wilton to a stay of execution of 21 months in prison (while a corporate entity cannot be sent to prison, under Minnesota law this sanction establishes that the offense is a felony) and 15 years of probation, and ordered to pay a fine of $30,000 and approximately $3,000 in restitution in connection with assisting Doreen Dunn in committing suicide on May 30, 2007, at her home in Apple Valley.  FEN will remain on probation until the fine and restitution is paid.  On May 14, 2015, a Dakota County Jury found Final Exit Network, Inc. guilty of Assisting Another to Commit Suicide and Interference with a Dead Body or Death Scene.

Additional facts pertaining to this case can be found online at: Criminal Complaint Search.  To view prior news releases, go to: Attorney News Releases.

Final Exit Network Receives Maximum Sentence for Assisting Suicide

http://www.startribune.com/final-exit-network-fined-30-000-for-assisting-apple-valley-woman-s-suicide/322700141/

A Dakota County judge on Monday ordered Final Exit Network, a national right-to-die group, to pay a $30,000 fine and nearly $3,000 in funeral costs for assisting an Apple Valley woman’s 2007 suicide.

The sentence was the maximum Judge Christian S. Wilton could impose on the corporation for assisting a suicide.

Most States Have Rejected Assisted Suicide

In the last five years, four states have strengthened their laws against assisted suicide. These states are: Arizona, Idaho, Georgia and Louisiana.

In the last 30 days, courts in New Mexico and California have rejected assisted suicide. The  New Mexico Court of Appeals struck down a lower court ruling that had allowed physician-assisted suicide. A California trial court declined to legalize physician-assisted suicide, holding that California's law prohibiting physician-assisted suicide is constitution.

This year, there have been 25 plus proposals to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the United States, not one of which has passed.[1]

There are just three states were physician-assisted suicide is legal: Oregon; Washington; and Vermont.  In a fourth state, Montana, case law gives doctors who assist a suicide a defense to a homicide charge; the doctor can still be charged.  In both Montana and Vermont, there are active movements to eliminate assisted suicide.[2]

* * *
[1]  Death with Dignity National Center
[2]  In Montana, SB 202, which would have legalized physician-assisted suicide was defeated; HB 477, which would have reversed the court decision giving doctors a defense to a homicide charge, passed the House.  See http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/2015/05/sb-202-dead.html and http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/2015/03/hb-477-passes-house.html   See also www.truedignityvt.org

California's ABX2-15: Governor Not Impressed; Bill Is But A "New Number With the Same Song."

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

Yesterday, the deceptively named Compassion & Choices unveiled its "new" deceptively named End of Life Option Act to great fanfare in a press credentialed only press conference.

Governor Jerry Brown has already weighed in that the present special session "is not the appropriate venue to consider the issue."

The new bill, ABX2-15, is in substance an old bill (SB 128) that was unable to make it out of committee.

AB 15 has some new provisions and puts some of the old bill's provisions in a different order. ABX2-15 is in substance the same bill as the old bill. Key points include:

• ABX2-15 applies to patients with a "terminal disease." In Oregon, which has a similar law, such persons include young adults with chronic conditions such as insulin dependent diabetes and chronic lower respiratory disease. People living with HIV/AIDS, who are dependent on their medication to live, also qualify as "terminal." Such persons can have years, even decades, to live. 

• Once a person is "labeled 'terminal,' an easy justification can be made that his or her treatment or coverage should be denied in favor of someone more deserving."[1] In Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, patients are not only denied coverage for treatment, they are offered assisted suicide instead.[2] Well known cases are Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup.[3]

• The bill remains a recipe for elder abuse in which the patient's heir, who will financially benefit from his or her death, is allowed to actively participate in signing the patient up for the lethal dose. This fact alone does not meet the "stink test." 

• Once the lethal dose is issued by the pharmacy, there is no oversight. Not even a witness is required at the death. If the patient struggled, who would know?

• The death certificate is required to be falsified to reflect a natural death. The significance is a lack of transparency and an inability to prosecute for murder even in a case of outright murder for the money.

ABX2-15 is but a new number with the same song. Don't be fooled.

To view a detailed legal/policy analysis of ABX2-15, please click on the following links: Executive summary and index; Memo; and Appendix/Attachments.

* * *

[1] Opinion Letter by Richard Wonderly MD and Attorney Theresa Schrempp, available at https://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/schrempp_wonderly_opn_ltr1.pdf

[2] Id.
[3] Id.

Memo to the California State Assembly: "No" on SB 128

The original pdf version of this memo has an executive summary and index, which can be viewed here. The attachments can be viewed here.

I. INTRODUCTION.

I am an attorney in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal.[1] Our law is based on a similar law in Oregon. Both laws are similar to the proposed California bill, SB 128.[2] 

Enactment of SB 128 will create new paths of elder abuse. “Eligible” patients will include people with years, even decades, to live.  

I urge you to reject this measure. Do not make Washington’s and Oregon’s mistake.

New Mexico court strikes down ruling that allowed assisted suicide

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/11/assisted-suicide-new-mexico-ruling-struck-higher-c/  By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Tuesday, August 11, 2015

The New Mexico Court of Appeals handed a defeat to the right-to-die movement Tuesday by striking down a lower-court ruling establishing physician-assisted suicide.

The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that the district court had erred when it determined that “aid in dying is a fundamental liberty interest.”

“We conclude that aid in dying is not a fundamental liberty interest under the New Mexico Constitution,” said Judge Timothy L. Garcia in the majority opinion.

California Prohibition Against Assisted Suicide is Constitutional.

Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

A California trial court has upheld the constitutionality of that state's criminal statute prohibiting assisted suicide, which states:

Every person who deliberately aids, or advises, or encourages another to commit suicide, is guilty of a felony.

Penal Code § 401

The court's reasoning is contained in a 19 page "Ruling on Demurrer," filed on July 24, 2015. The ruling uses the term, "Aid in Dying" to mean physician-assisted suicide.  The term also means euthanasia. The court states in part:

Since "Aid in Dying" is quicker and less expensive, there is a much greater potential for its abuse, e.g,, greedy heirs-in-waiting, cost containment strategies, ímpulse decision-making, etc. Moreover, since it can be employed earlier in the dying process, there is a substantial risk that in many cases, it may bring about a patently premature death. For example, consider that a terminally ill patient, not in pain but facing death within the next six months, may opt for “Aid in Dying”' instead of working through what might have been just a transitory period of depression. Further, "Aid in Dying" creates the possible scenario of someone taking his life based upon an erroneous diagnosis of a terminal illness illness, which was, in fact, a mis-diagnosis that could have been brought to light by the passage of time. After all, doctors are not infallible.