Hawaii Police Department Opens Murder Probe After Alleged Violation of Hawaii’s Assisted Death Law

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2025/01/04/breaking-news/hpd-opens-murder-probe-after-alleged-violation-of-hawaiis-assisted-death-law

By Star-Advertiser staff

Jan. 4, 2025

Honolulu police said they have opened a second-degree murder investigation after a doctor allegedly administer a lethal prescription dose to an 88-year-old woman in violation of Hawaii’s assisted death law.

Hawaii’s Our Care, Our Choice Act of 2018 allows for the prescription of a lethal medication under certain requirements, including to self-administer the lethal medication for the purpose of ending a person’s life, according to police. “Self-administer” means that a person ”must perform an affirmative, conscious, voluntary act to take into the individual’s body the prescription medication to end the individual’s life,” police said

Police alleged Friday that in October in the Punahou area, a 73-year-old male doctor assisted in administering the prescribed medication.

Delaware Talking Points (2025)

By Margaret K. Dore, Esq., MBA

“Aid in Dying” has been a euphemism for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia since at least 1992.

Per the American Medical Association, "physician-assisted suicide" occurs when a doctor facilitates a patient’s death by providing the means or information to enable a patient to perform the life-ending act. "Euthanasia" is the administration of a lethal agent by another person. 

Persons assisting a suicide can have an agenda. Reported motives include: the “thrill” of getting other people to kill themselves; and wanting to see someone die.

This year's proposed Delaware Act, HB 140, has a formal application process to obtain a lethal dose to kill patients. Once a lethal dose is issued by a pharmacy, there is no required oversight. No medical person or even a witness is required to be present at the patient's death.

Current Delaware law prevents a person who kills another person, i.e., commits homicide, from inheriting from a person that he or she killed. The rationale is that a criminal should not be allowed to benefit from his or her crime.

Per the proposed Act, however, a person  who intentionally kills another person may be allowed to inherit. This is because deaths occurring pursuant to the Act will be treated as natural, as if the person who died, had died from natural causes as opposed to a lethal overdose." 

In the event of the proposed Act’s passage, Delaware residents with money, meaning the middle class and above, will be rendered sitting ducks to their heirs. Passage of the Act will create a perfect crime.

Once Euthanasia is Legal, Expansion Inevitable

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition 

The Politico published a pro-euthanasia article by Claudia Chiappa and Lucia Mackenzie on December 29, 2024. Chiappa and Mackenzie are suggesting that the legalization of euthanasia is inevitable but when they interview Theo Boer, [pictured right] a former member of a Netherlands euthanasia review committee he actually tells them that the expansion of euthanasia, once legal is inevitable. Boer states:

I have seen no jurisdiction in which the practice has not expanded, not one single jurisdiction,

By imposing really strict criteria we can slow down the expansion … but they will not prevent the expansion.

Chiappa and Mackenzie publish some of the Netherlands euthanasia statistics:

In several of the countries that have legalized assisted dying, the number of people using it to end their lives is increasing. In 2023, 9,068 people died from assisted dying in the Netherlands — 5.4 percent of deaths that year. This is up 4 percent compared with 2022 and up 87 percent from 2013.

Canadian Group That Led Campaign for Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) Calling for Safeguards

Miranda Schreiber, Special to National Post

The civil liberties group that led the push for the 2015 decriminalization of physician-assisted suicide in Canada is now warning it has become too easy to obtain MAID, and the government must enact safeguards.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) filed the case for Carter v. Canada, the constitutional challenge that led to the country’s current Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) regime. Statistics released last week reveal it was responsible for about one in 20 deaths in Canada in 2023, including 622 people who received MAID for a non-terminal illness.

Liz Hughes, [pictured above] who has served as BCCLA executive director since June 2023, said in a statement to the National Post the group is “aware of concerning reports of people being offered MAID in circumstances that may not legally qualify, as well as people accessing MAID as a result of intolerable social circumstances.”

Hughes called for government action: “Governments must put in place, actively review, and enforce appropriate safeguards to ensure that people are making this decision freely.”

Jimmy Carter Has Died

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, died Sunday at the age of 100, the Carter Center confirmed. Though he served only one term in office, he went on to a distinguished second act of humanitarian work, and he lived long enough to become the oldest former president in U.S. history.

Carter "died peacefully Sunday, Dec. 29, at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family," the Carter Center said in a statement.

"My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love," said Chip Carter, the former president's son, in a statement provided by the Carter Center. "My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs."

I’m Dying of Brain Cancer. I Prepared to End my Life. Then I Kept Living.

Perspective by Jeffrey Davitz

To view the entire article, click here. 

In April 2015, at the age of 55, I was diagnosed with one of the most lethal and aggressive brain tumors, a brainstem glioblastoma multiforme in an advanced stage. The prognosis was both grim and precise: Without treatment, I might have a few months; with treatment, I could last six months. If I beat overwhelming odds, I’d toast the new year one last time.

During the time my doctors were converging on my cancer diagnosis, interest was building here in California for a law, called “aid in dying,” that would allow physicians to help patients end their lives....

Then, I learned that while the aid-in-dying law had been enacted, it contained a procedural delay: It would not be effective until the following June, in 2016, long past my predicted death. I decided I wasn’t going to move to Oregon or another state that permitted assisted suicide, since it would eventually be legal in my state. I would wait if I could, and I would use extralegal means if I began to slip beforehand.... I was ready....

Then a peculiar thing happened: I started to get better.