British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

From: Telegraph

Keir Starmer, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, is to clarify whether people should be prosecuted for aiding a suicide following a landmark ruling by the Law Lords last week. It had been assumed that this guidance would affect only cases in which friends or relatives helped people to die abroad, such as at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich.

However, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Starmer said the “broad principles” of his new guidelines would apply equally to acts of assisted suicide planned and carried out at home.

He denied that any new interpretation of the law would lead to a large increase in assisted suicides, as was suggested by campaigners opposed to the legalisation of the practice.

Mr Starmer was forced to come forward with guidance on the law after a legal victory last week by Debbie Purdy, 46, from Bradford, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. She brought a case against the DPP because she wanted to know whether her husband would be prosecuted if he helped her commit suicide overseas.

Under the 1961 Suicide Act, those who aid, abet, counsel or procure someone else’s suicide can be prosecuted and punished with up to 14 years in jail. However, no one has been prosecuted for doing so.

Mr Starmer made clear that the new guidelines would apply to all assisted suicides.

“This is not a policy that’s going to apply only to those who go abroad. Newspapers are saying that, but they’re wrong,” he said.

“This policy is going to cover all assisted suicides. The same broad principles will apply. They’ve got to apply to all acts, in the jurisdiction or out of it.

“We won’t have separate rules for Dignitas.”

Mr Starmer would not be arguing for wholesale changes in the law but said “Parliament has to speak” on the anomaly of assisted suicide being illegal in Britain but permitted in Switzerland.

The DPP has been reluctant to clarify the law for fear of making it easier for unscrupulous relatives who might want to bring about the death of an elderly relative for sinister reasons.

In his Telegraph interview, Mr Starmer gave an insight into the difficulties he faced in drafting the new guidelines.

“On the question of whether this is better dealt with by Parliament, there’s nothing much I can do to nudge them along,” he said. “They’re divided, there’s no inclination to change the law, so we have no choice but to produce this policy.”

On the distinction between assisted suicide at home and abroad, he added: “We can’t change the law, just fill in the policy. That would require a change of the law.

“Not everyone has the means to go abroad to commit suicide, and a political decision has to be made on whether some assisted suicide is legal. That decision needs to be made by Parliament.”

Mr Starmer’s insistence that he would prefer Parliament to rule on the matter was unlikely, however, to provoke the Government to intervene in such a sensitive area. And he accepted that the House of Lords judgment gave him a mandate to shape the law.

In the past year, 23 Britons have died at Dignitas. Several hundred more were believed to be on its waiting list. Mr Starmer used the example of Daniel James, a 23 year-old paralysed playing rugby who died at the Swiss clinic, to illustrate his point that the location of a suicide would make no difference.

“In the Daniel James case, the acts we focused on were those that took place before they left England, and it didn’t much matter where the suicide was,” he said. “The factors we took into account — whether he was exercising individual judgment, whether there was any undue influence by the parents, whether they sought to persuade rather than assist him — will be as relevant for those acting inside the jurisdiction as for those acting outside.”

Mr Starmer’s comments suggested that he would be sympathetic to those who colluded in assisted suicide but he did not expect a rush of cases. “I don’t think there are hundreds of people waiting to commit suicide depending on any policy I make,” he said.

He was expected to publish an interim policy next month for public consultation. A permanent policy would be published next spring.

From: Care Not Killing

The Care not Killing Alliance, representing almost 50 organisations, has welcomed today's British Medical Association decision to oppose any legalisation of assistance with suicide. The BMA, at its annual representative meeting in Liverpool, has voted overwhelmingly to reject a motion calling for support for a change in the law in the light of recent high profile cases such as that of Multiple Sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy.

The vote comes as the House of Lords is about to vote on a hugely controversial amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill by Lord Falconer which would allow relatives assisting people who are terminally ill and able to make a declaration to end their lives at suicide facilities like Dignitas in Switzerland to escape investigation or prosecution.

Care Not Killing Director Dr Peter Saunders said, 'British doctors do not want any change in the law to allow assisted suicide or euthanasia and today they have sent a strong signal to Parliament Parliament, both Westminster and Holyrood, not to tamper with the present law. This is hugely significant as it comes in the same week as a similar warning from senior legal figures who in a letter to the Times last Monday have called the Falconer amendment 'ill-defined, unsound and unnecessary' and said that its provisions are 'lacking in rigour and would fail to protect vulnerable sick people from unscrupulous coercion and abuse'.

The current law is clear and right. It has both a stern face to deter would-be abusers and a kind heart to enable judges to exercise compassion in hard cases. Despite a sustained media campaign built around a small number of high-profile cases by Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) the demand for assisted suicide in Britain remains very small indeed.

Over the last ten years, despite not a single prosecution, only 115 Britons have traveled to Switzerland to kill themselves representing less than one in 50,000 deaths over the same period. Changing the law for a few determined individuals would put a much larger number of vulnerable people at risk.

Doctors who deal with the terminally and chronically ill recognize their vulnerability and need for legal protection and believe that the real answer is more and better care and support for patients and their families. It is highly significant that the BMA has already voted this week to make the very best palliative care much more widely accessible.

At a time of economic recession with imminent health cuts, growing numbers of elderly people, and increasing levels of elder abuse the very last thing we need is to put vulnerable people, many of whom already think they are a financial or emotional burden to relatives, carers and the state, under pressure to end their lives by making assisted suicide or euthanasia a cheap and legal 'treatment' option.

Last Monday in the Guardian the RCGP chairman Professor Steve Field, the RCP ethics chair Professor John Saunders and the BMA ethics chair Dr Tony Calland expressed their serious concern about the number of British people suffering from non-terminal diseases, with in some cases decades of life expectancy, who are already killing themselves at the Dignitas suicide facility in Switzerland .The Journal of Medical Ethics reported last year that one in five patients dying there were not terminally ill and individual cases of people dying there with chronic disease, severe disability, depression and in some cases bereavement alone are now well documented.

By rejecting this motion today the BMA has affirmed its longstanding opposition to a change in the law and has chosen to stand with the RCP, the RCGP, the RCN and the two thirds of doctors who consistently say in all opinion polls that they do not wish the law to change.

Courtesy of C-FAM, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute

A cabal of the world’s richest men and women just met in New York City. The meeting included multi-billionaires David Rockefeller, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Warren Buffet. The purpose of the meeting was to coordinate their charitable giving. That sounds wonderful doesn’t it? Until you hear what they agreed on. They agreed that the world’s number one problem is that there are too many poor people. That’s nice, too. There are too many poor people. And what is their solution? Get rid of the poor people. 

These fabulously wealthy people with their grand houses, private jets, yachts and lavish lifestyles decided to pool their massive resources and declare war on the world’s poor by spending billions of dollars on population control! This group met a few days ago in New York and call themselves, get this, 'The Good Club'!

This is a veritable rogues gallery of anti-life and anti-family plutocrats. Ted Turner is a long time supporter of forcing poor countries to support abortion and population control. David Rockefeller is one of the founders of the modern population control movement and through his Rockefeller Foundation has paid billions for it. And these guys are not just for population control; They are also anti-Christian!

The Rockefeller Foundation is one of the big funders of the anti-Catholic anti-life groups that calls itself Catholics for Choice. Ted Turner gave a speech at the UN several years ago in which he attacked his childhood Christianity and was given a standing ovation for doing so! There is a massive resurgence of population control activity. Just a few weeks ago, we reported in our Friday Fax that the UN just issued a new report calling for increased spending to reduce the fertility rate (that is UN-speak for population control) in the developing world!

I will put aside the question of whether these guys have gotten the news that the big population problem in the world today is not rapidly growing populations but rather the “graying of the population” precisely because of UN style population control programs. I bring this to your attention because as there is renewed spending on these issues and that the UN is back into the population control business so much that there is a profound need for the continuing health of C-FAM’s Friday Fax...

Never in the field of human endeavour can there have been such a crass policy. Think about it. Some one has called 999. We don’t know who. How should we react?

If the dying person has a known terminal illness, and is dying at home, we may presume that the actors, relatives, general practitioner, hospice staff, carers etc., know this. So Advanced Directive or not discussions will have been held to explain the signs of death and the procedures to follow when the person dies.

Sir, The deregistration of Margaret Haywood by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (report, April 17) is a dismal example of adherence to rules taking precedence over a broader concern for professional standards. It is abundantly clear that Ms Haywood’s motivation was solely to correct failures at the Royal Sussex Hospital. Ms Haywood was evidently aware of the risks attached to breaking the rules of patient confidentiality, yet it is clear she saw it as a higher professional duty to patient wellbeing that the disgraceful abuse of elderly and dying patients should be exposed.

Patient confidentiality is a serious matter, but to remove Ms Haywood from the NMC Register for what amounts to a technical breach of the rules is, in the context of this case, a denial of reason and justice.

Peter Lindon

Lewes, E Sussex

Sir, Margaret Haywood is an experienced nurse of long standing. The kind of nurse that the NHS desperately needs. She should not have been struck off for exposing the failures of the Royal Sussex.

The feeling seems to be that the public should just accept the falling standards of the NHS, with draconian measures to keep mum about failure.

Jenny Mccoy

Coulsdon, Surrey

Life and Death Matters: Disability Rights and Incapacity Date: Monday 29 March 2010 .

Barristers and solicitors are entitled to claim 6 CPD points for attendance.

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From The Daily Mail

By Chris Brooke

A girl of 15 died five days after an abortion because of a blunder at her clinic, an inquest heard yesterday.

Alesha Thomas was supposed to have been given antibiotics to combat infection after the procedure.

But she never received the medication and was struck down by a heart attack caused by a bacterial toxin.

The sexual health organisation Marie Stopes International, which ran the clinic, was strongly criticised by the coroner for procedural failings. He warned it could face legal action.

Due to inefficient practices at the clinic it was not uncommon for patients to leave without being given their prescribed medication, the inquest heard.

Alesha was a 'healthy and fit adolescent' who confided in her mother Rose Bent that she was pregnant in June 2007, Huddersfield Coroner's Court heard.

After discussing her options, they chose an abortion at the Marie Stopes International clinic in Leeds.

Two weeks later, when Alesha was just over 15 weeks into the pregnancy, the 25-minute procedure was performed successfully by gynaecologist Dr Peter Paku.

From The Times

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

Condoms are to be advertised round-the-clock on television under proposals published today.

In an attempt to cut the teenage pregnancy rate, which is the highest in Europe, the Committee of Advertising Practice and Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice wants to relax the current rules. The authority also proposes to allow pro-abortion services to advertise on television for the first time in a move condemned immediately by anti-abortion groups.

The 9pm watershed on condom advertisements is to be abolished, although they will not be broadcast around programmes aimed at children under 10.

The change is outlined in a consultation by the authority beginning today on new advertising codes for broadcast and other media. Pregnancy advice services will be able to advertise on television but must make it clear whether or not their service includes abortion referrals.

The use of condoms was condemned last week by the Pope as a health measure that “aggravates” rather than protects against the problem of HIV/Aids infection.

Anti-abortion and Catholic groups believe that condoms encourage promiscuity and so have the opposite effect of what is intended, increasing rates of unwanted pregnancies and risking an increase of sexually transmitted diseases.

At present, condoms cannot be advertised on Channel 4 before 7pm and on other channels before 9pm, in order to protect younger viewers from “inappropriate” content. Britain’s growing teenage pregnancy rate, however, has prompted the proposal for change.

Baroness Gould of Potternewton, the chairman of the Government’s Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV, wrote to the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice in 2007 to request a review of the scheduling restrictions on condom advertising, noting that Britain had the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe and spiralling rates of sexually transmitted infections. Her group’s annual report had showed that young people believed television was one of the most effective ways of encouraging those of the same age group to use condoms.

Advertising chiefs have also examined figures in the House of Commons Library which show that, from 2002 to 2006, more than 11,000 under-16s had gonorrhoea, chlamydia, syphilis, herpes or genital warts diagnosed.

“The presence of condom advertisements on television continues to be a subject of complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, but numbers are very low,” the consultation document reports.

The document advises that public sensitivities must be balanced against “a public health problem that is clearly urgent”.

In her letter to the committee, Lady Gould argued that relaxing restrictions on sanitary protection had helped to increase familiarity with those products and that advertising now associated them with “healthy and active lifestyles.”

Michaela Aston, of the pregnancy crisis service Life, said: “This is awful. Pro-life charities have no money and pro-abortion charities have a lot. We will never be able to afford to advertise on television. The only thing we will see is abortion agencies targeting the young. Going alongside condom advertising throughout the day, it is just going to encourage young people to have sex.

“The message is that if they use condoms it will reduce teenage pregnancy, even though the last decade has shown that the opposite is true. The next thing we will see is free condoms in breakfast cereals.”

John Smeaton, of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: “This is rather predictable on abortion, and condom advertisements throughout the day won’t help either. There is plenty of evidence to show that the more you promote easy access to birth control among young people, the higher the preg- nancy rate, the higher the abortion rate. This is not the solution to the problem.”

Andrew Brown, the chairman of the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice, said: “The UK advertising codes are widely recognised for setting a high bar for social responsibility. Our priority is to ensure that the rules remain relevant for the future so that consumers can continue to enjoy and trust the ads they see. Throughout this process, we sought the views of industry and policy makers and now we want to hear from all other interested parties, including the people that matter the most in advertising, the general public.”

From The Sunday Times

Given no other way to end their lives, patients are choosing an Euthanasia agonising death with the help of GPs

Sadness at the prolonged illness of young Hannah Jones is only exceeded by sadness at the heavy-handed paternalism that decided Hereford Hospital consultants to try to remove her from her family and home and force her to have a heart transplant against her considered will. Her reasons are her own but perhaps include some realisation that living hearts can only come from living bodies, as well as her generosity in thinking of others who are waiting for such an operation.

As we admire her courage, we can pray that she will continue to enjoy life at home for much longer than is at present anticipated.

Dr David J Hill.

From C-fam.org

By Austin Rose

(C-FAM – WASHINGTON, DC) The pro-abortion law group the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) has already called for President-elect Barrack Obama to renew America’s commitment to “reproductive rights” which, according to CRR, prominently includes a right to abortion. It is likely the new president will work almost immediately to correct what his ideological allies like CRR view as multiple mistakes of the Bush administration with regard to international social policy.

By Wesley J. Smith

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 06, 2008

One of the most important services that medical professionals can offer to the people they serve, I think, is to declare their offices and facilities to be "assisted suicide free zones." Indeed, I hope that medical organizations create plaques and certificates to that doctors and health care facilities can mount on office walls.

Some hospitals are already on this bandwagon, declaring that assisted suicides will not be permitted on premises: From the story:

While Washington voters made it legal for doctors to help terminally ill residents end their lives, opponents of the assisted suicide measure indicated Wednesday they will continue to resist the practice...Eastern Washington's largest hospital system, Providence Health and Services, will forbid physicians from helping patients die at its hospitals, nursing homes and assisted care centers. "Providence will not support physician-assisted suicide within its ministries," the owner of Sacred Heart Medical Center and Holy Family Hospital said in a prepared statement. "This position is grounded in our basic values of respect for the sacredness of life, compassionate care of dying and vulnerable persons, and respect for the integrity of medical, nursing and allied health professions. We do not believe health care providers should ever be put in a position of aiding a patient in taking his or her own life."

This is important. Medical professionals must resist turning killing (which means to end life) into a medical treatment. None can be forced (yet) to participate. Such modeling may save lives of people who, thanks to the continued professionals of non participating medical professionals, will never ask for assisted suicide. And it will give courage to others to resist the culture of death that this way comes.

Of course, eventually the ideologues will try and force people to participate or be complicit in the killing, as I have written here at SHS. In the end, the culture of death brooks no dissent. But dissent we must, and resist we will.

Daniel James's death is a tragic end to his very sad story.

Suicide attempted in the months following an accident resulting in paralysis in a young man is far from unusual. The awful truth about his future can only be faced if there is adequate support from family and friends around the clock. Psychiatric help is essential with an on going commitment.

Suicide is not a punishable offence in law. Assisted suicide is different, it involves another person often a relative who is emotionally involved and may be blackmailed into believing that they are being compassionate and caring. The unfortunate victim has no chance of allowing second thoughts to change his mind.

Allowing assisted suicide is a pernicious ideology.

Mary Knowles

Daily Telegraph

Sir – As a Catholic, a Jew, and a humanist, with shared values in the area of medicine and ethics, we strongly support medical research using human tissue.

We encourage people, if they have the opportunity, to donate blood or tissue samples to “tissue banks”.

However, in 2008 it is an outmoded concept to expect people to allow blood or tissue to be used without consent.

Britain has led the way in promoting effective procedures to ensure this, via the Human Tissue Authority.

We believe that we should continue to show such leadership: so, if the research is itself controversial, then we expect that the right to “conscientious objection” – for both donor and doctor – should be respected.

We regret that this week the Commons did not amend the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to incorporate a robust consent clause.

If this is not corrected, then we believe that prospective donors will be discouraged from donating to tissue banks.

We have differing perspectives on human-animal hybridisation, but share the concern: how can people trust in science if their tissue can be used in this way without their consent?

“Presumed consent” is no consent at all.

Professor David Albert Jones, St Mary’s University College, Twickenham

Professor David Katz, University College London Medical School; Dr David King Director, Human Genetics Alert

Sunday Telegraph

By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent

On Wednesday MPs will vote on a bill which would allow the creation of human/animal hybrid embryos to be used for stem cell research, change the conditions for granting IVF, and possibly liberalise the abortion laws.

The passage through Parliament of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill has been dogged by controversy. Failed attempts to outlaw late abortion have dominated the debate, while scientists, medical ethics experts and religious leaders have clashed over the hybrid embryo issue.

Defenders of the bill have repeatedly stressed the importance of gaining consent from anyone whose tissue is taken for the creation of human/animal hybrid embryos.

It can now be revealed that a Government amendment, agreed after the main parliamentary debates, would allow tissue to be used from people who lack the "mental capacity" to give consent, children whose parents give permission, and anyone who has previously donated samples to hospitals for medical research but can no longer be traced.

Medical ethics experts and religious leaders are furious that the provisions, which they say ride roughshod over basic human rights, have already been agreed by an all-party committee of 17 MPs charged with scrutinising the bill, without any public debate or discussion in the main chambers of Parliament.

Prof David Jones, director of the Centre for Bioethics and Emerging Technologies at St Mary's University College, London, said: "In May we had a public debate about whether or not it is a good thing to create hybrid embryos.

"Now it transpires that just weeks later, with no public debate at all, the Government inserted these amendments which cross a fundamental line in medical ethics by presuming consent in many cases. I think it is totally objectionable, and I really worry that this will create a backlash against medical research."

He said he feared that someone who had strong ethical concerns about the creation of embryos could have their original wishes overruled, if they developed a disease such as Alzheimers and decisions about consent were taken by someone who did not know them.

Prof John Haldane, director of the Centre for Philosophy and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews, described the draft legislation as a "mess" which would sweep away 25 years of progress in medical ethics.

"The most intimate thing over which you have control is your body and its fate; and this is total violation of that basic right," he said.

Under the amendment, if a person was deemed unable to give consent their carer would make a decision on their behalf. If the person did not have a carer, researchers would nominate a person to make the judgement. If scientists wanted to use human tissues already donated for research, perhaps during a medical procedure, but were unable to trace the donors because the research had been anonymised or the person had moved house, the samples could also be used.

Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson, one of the members of the committee which passed the amendments proposed by public health minister Dawn Primarolo, said he feared that major changes were being made with little consideration by Parliament and almost no public debate.

"I am really worried that this whole debate has become hijacked by the issue of abortion, and that really significant issues like this have not had a good airing, and are unlikely to do so this week when the bill gets to its final stage, despite the fact this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make some fundamental decisions," he said.

Dr Gibson said he personally opposed any use of tissue without consent. "There has to be consent, there can be no substitution for it. If you are not sure it is what the person would have wanted, that is just not good enough," he said.

Jim McManus, from the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, described the changes to the bill as a "macabre" prospect. He said: "This is a reckless step backwards, and it rides roughshod over a basic human right."

Scientists say combining animal embryos with human cells would allow an expansion in research, which is currently limited by numbers of donations of human embryos.

Catherine Elliot, from the Medical Research Council, said such research could provide a "powerful tool" to examine the development and treatment of different diseases. She said research would "rarely" be carried out without consent, because under the amendment, ethics committees must be satisfied the same research could not have been carried out using tissue from patients who had granted permission.

Charities representing people with degenerative diseases and learning disabilities last night said they knew little about the changes to the bill, which have received almost no publicity.

Mencap and The Motor Neurone Disease Association said they would now be studying the amendment, while the Alzheimer's Society expressed some reservations, but said it was optimistic that ethics committees would take cautious decisions about the use of tissue if consent had not been obtained.

A counter-amendment, deleting the changes to consent, has been listed for the bill's final debate on Wednesday, but campaigners fear it is unlikely to be discussed, as it is one of dozens vying to be chosen for the bill's final debate before MPs vote.

The Department of Health said the amendment came in response to concerns raised in the House of Lords about the use of cells from children who were not able to give consent, and adults who lacked mental capacity to consent to research into serious illnesses from which they suffered.

A spokesman said ministers were satisfied that a case had been made which justified limited exceptions from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Although MPs have been given a free vote on some aspects of the bill, including the clauses governing the creation of hybrid embryos, Labour MPs will be under a three-line whip to support the changes on consent, which are dealt with in a separate part of the legislation.

By: Wesley J. Smith

The Swiss have overtaken the Dutch as the prime harbingers of things to come in the Culture of Death. As it grants individual intrinsic dignity to plants, its Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill. Now, a debate is opening, the end point of which is to force all nursing homes and hospitals to permit assisted suicides to take place on premises. From the story:

In 2007 Exit carried out 245 assisted suicides by Swiss or foreign nationals living in Switzerland. Exit assists only Swiss residents and usually goes to them in their own homes.

But Lausanne and Geneva university hospitals and several nursing homes also allow assisted suicide on their premises. Out of the 66 assisted suicides in French-speaking Switzerland last year, five took place in old people's homes.

Jérôme Sobel, president of Exit for French-speaking Switzerland, told Swissinfo that the five cases "took place normally", but said some homes do not allow the practice at all or put up obstacles. The purpose of the initiative is to put pressure on them to ensure that terminally ill patients' full rights are respected. "We have encountered major difficulties on several occasions," he explained. "When we go to a nursing home to help someone there shouldn't be a stand-off each time with the directors."

Exit's initiative asks for nursing homes receiving state subsidies to allow elderly residents to receive assistance to suicide if they request it, in accordance with article 115 of the Swiss Penal Code and article 34 of Vaud's cantonal Penal Code. "When a nursing home stops us, they are contravening the law," said Sobel. Exit has until February 3, 2009 to collect 12,000 signatures in canton Vaud to force a local vote on the issue.

That would make dissenting facilities complicit in suicide, of course, which is the point.

The Swiss proposal is not an isolated incident. As I wrote here at SHS and elsewhere, the last assisted suicide legislation in California, that did not pass, would also have required all health care facilities but acute care hospitals to permit assisted suicide on premises, with no exemption for religious or moral objection allowed, meaning that Catholic nursing homes (as but one example) would have been forced to permit their patients to be helped in suicide.

As the Culture of Death gains strength, expect more of this kind of coercion, an approach already occurring in other issues, both to ensure that all are complicit and to stifle the silent message of dissent that non cooperation with the agenda sends. The Culture of Death demands that obeisance from all.

By: Wesley J. Smith

The Swiss have overtaken the Dutch as the prime harbingers of things to come in the Culture of Death. As it grants individual intrinsic dignity to plants, its Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill. Now, a debate is opening, the end point of which is to force all nursing homes and hospitals to permit assisted suicides to take place on premises. From the story:

In 2007 Exit carried out 245 assisted suicides by Swiss or foreign nationals living in Switzerland. Exit assists only Swiss residents and usually goes to them in their own homes.

But Lausanne and Geneva university hospitals and several nursing homes also allow assisted suicide on their premises. Out of the 66 assisted suicides in French-speaking Switzerland last year, five took place in old people's homes.

Jérôme Sobel, president of Exit for French-speaking Switzerland, told Swissinfo that the five cases "took place normally", but said some homes do not allow the practice at all or put up obstacles. The purpose of the initiative is to put pressure on them to ensure that terminally ill patients' full rights are respected. "We have encountered major difficulties on several occasions," he explained. "When we go to a nursing home to help someone there shouldn't be a stand-off each time with the directors."

Exit's initiative asks for nursing homes receiving state subsidies to allow elderly residents to receive assistance to suicide if they request it, in accordance with article 115 of the Swiss Penal Code and article 34 of Vaud's cantonal Penal Code. "When a nursing home stops us, they are contravening the law," said Sobel. Exit has until February 3, 2009 to collect 12,000 signatures in canton Vaud to force a local vote on the issue.

That would make dissenting facilities complicit in suicide, of course, which is the point.

The Swiss proposal is not an isolated incident. As I wrote here at SHS and elsewhere, the last assisted suicide legislation in California, that did not pass, would also have required all health care facilities but acute care hospitals to permit assisted suicide on premises, with no exemption for religious or moral objection allowed, meaning that Catholic nursing homes (as but one example) would have been forced to permit their patients to be helped in suicide.

As the Culture of Death gains strength, expect more of this kind of coercion, an approach already occurring in other issues, both to ensure that all are complicit and to stifle the silent message of dissent that non cooperation with the agenda sends. The Culture of Death demands that obeisance from all.

Daily Telegraph

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

A safer way to turn one kind of cell into another has been developed that could make it much easier to develop revolutionary new treatments based on stem cells.

By Wesley J. Smith

Barach Obama has been accused of opposing the Infant Born Alive Protection Act, which requires hospitals and doctors to treat the survivors of attempted abortion. He denies this despite having refused repeatedly to vote for the Illinois versions.

This 2001 transcript, pp.86-87, is telling. Expressing a hyper-legalism to avoid grappling with the issue, Obama argued against the legislation, stating:

The second reason that it would probably be found unconstitutional is that this essentially says that a doctor is required to provide treatment for a previable child or fetus, however way you want to describe it. Viability is the line that has been drawn by the Supreme Court to determine whether or not an abortion can or cannot take place. And if we place the burden on the doctor, that says you have to keep alive even a previable child as long as possible and give them as much medical attention--as is necessary to try to keep the child alive, then we're probably crossing the line in terms of unconstitutionality.

"A previable child or fetus, however way you want to describe it"? Once the child is delivered, he or she is an infant, not a fetus. And the requirement that a living baby be treated once delivered, has nothing to do with abortion or the woman's right to the same. So, it seems to me that the only way to read Obama's statement is that he doesn't believe that abortion survivors should have to be treated as fully human beings.

And how's this for leadership? After making his statement, after asserting that the bill is unconstitutional, Obama said:

I think that we will probably end up in court once again, as we often do on this issue. And as a consequence, I'll be voting Present.

The courage to lead!

By: Wesley J. Smith

This YouTube video demonstrates the garbage thrown by animal rights activists and those who make a quasi-religion out of the environment.

Governor Sarah Palin does indeed, support aerial hunting of wolves. But not for fun (and she has never done it). The point is predator control, as an article in Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2199140) points out that aerial hunting is against federal law and is only permitted to control predators. Moreover, in Alaska permits are given only "in select areas" where moose and caribou populations are threatened. The article says this leaves more meat for human hunters. I don't doubt that, and I see nothing wrong with it. Subsistence hunting is a mainstay for some Alaskans' diets. But it would also seem that the hunts, which have controlled numbers of permitted kills, are also conducted as a matter of proper ecosystem management.

By: Wesley J. Smith

According to a UK study, the concerted drive to prenatally detect Down syndrome or other anomalies through genetic testing aimed at eugenic abortion is also causing the deaths of babies who have no disabling condition through miscarriage. From the story:

Two healthy babies are miscarried for every three Down's Syndrome babies that are detected and prevented from being born, research has suggested...

DSEI chief executive Frank Buckley and Professor Sue Buckley, who conducted their research using a database at London's Bart's Hospital, also point out that 95 per cent of women deemed to be high risk by the blood test will not be carrying a baby with the disorder, yet most go on to have the tests.

"The screening for Down's syndrome has consequences for every pregnant woman," they said. "You cannot look at it as just a search-and-destroy mission focused on babies with Down's alone."

Although they admit that their ratio is only an estimate, they are backed by a number of independent experts who fear inexperienced practitioners may also be to blame. Professor Kypros Nicolaides, head of the Harris Birthright Centre at King's College Hospital in south London, said the loss of healthy babies was "completely unacceptable"

"Search and destroy," yup that's a good description of an ugly process, with the unaffected babies apparently the collateral damage.

Here's an idea: How about not trying to destroy these babies in the first place and then the others will be safe, too.

By Rita L. Marker

Oregon seems to have found a surefire way to lower health care costs: Tell the patient you'll pay for drugs that will end her life, but not those that would extend her life.  Here's how it works:

• The oral requests, which must be separated by fifteen days, do not need to be witnessed. In fact, they don't even have to be made in person. They could be made by phone - even left on the physician's answering device. The written request must be witnessed, but it could be mailed or faxed to the doctor.

• The law states that the physician is to "recommend that the patient notify next of kin," but family notification is not required. It is entirely possible that the first time family members find out that a loved one was contemplating suicide could be after the death has occurred.

• Doctors can facilitate the suicides of mentally-ill or depressed patients without any prior counseling being provided. A psychiatric evaluation is required only if the physician believes that the mental illness or depression is causing impaired judgment. According to Oregon's latest official report, not one patient who died after taking the lethal drugs was referred for counseling prior to being given the prescription.

When all is said and done, it is not the intent of assisted-suicide supporters that matters.   Instead, it is the law's deadly content and the inevitable price that we would all pay for health care cost containment - Oregon style.

From the Daily Telegraph,

18 July 2008

A nurse has been cautioned but allowed to continue practising after she gave a chemical abortion to the wrong woman.

Ann Downer, 44, gave the drugs to a woman who had only gone into the clinic for an initial consultation following a mix-up over patient names.

She had not decided to have a termination when Downer gave her a dose of Misoprostol at the Calthorpe Clinic in Edgbaston, Birmingham.

Downer failed to check the patient's personal details to verify her identity before she administered the drug.

An NMC spokesman said the committee was told that the clinic's usual practice was to only call out first names of patients to protect their confidentiality while in the waiting room.

Once the patient was in a private room, other details, like their full name, date of birth and address, were checked to make sure they were the person the nurse was expecting.

The patient was only due to have an initial consultation, which would have involved a consultation with a doctor, blood tests and a scan.

The second stage - in which Misoprostol was administered - would only follow if the patient and doctor gave consent.

When staff realised what had happened the distraught woman, referred to as Patient A in the hearing, was called back to the clinic "in pain".

Doctors subsequently advised her to undergo a surgical abortion.

Downer should have given the drugs to a second patient, Patient B, who was in the later stages of a termination.

Patient A attended the clinic on October 13, 2006.

Patient B, who had the same first name, was due to have the drugs for the second stage of her medical abortion - only undertaken on women who have been pregnant for less than nine weeks.

Patients at the first stage are given a tablet of Mifepristone to swallow, which stops the growth of the foetus.

At the second stage, women are given Misoprostol to complete the abortion.

Nailah Mears, for the NMC, told the panel Downer was in charge of treating patients at the second stage when the mix-up was made.

She said: "During the course of the morning, it was discovered Miss Downer had mistakenly administered the second visit treatment to Patient A instead of Patient B.

"The registrant failed to carry out proper identity checks, and as such did not realise the treatment was being given to the wrong patient."

Miss Mears also told the panel that Patient A was over the nine week gestation period limit for giving such early abortion tablets.

She said: "Once the mistake came to light, Patient A was asked to return to the clinic and was later transferred to Birmingham Women's Hospital.

"She was given an ultrasound, and that ultrasound showed that Patient A was over the nine week gestation period.

"That is very significant in determining whether the early medical abortion was appropriate. It was not appropriate in this case."

Nurse manager Evlyn Mike told the hearing: "They telephoned Patient A and asked her to return to the clinic. She did return. Apparently she was in pain, and obviously very upset."

Downer, from Browns Green, Birmingham, was not present at the hearing.

She had admitted giving the abortion drug to the wrong patient but had denied failing to obtain Patient A's consent to give her the drug.

Downer will have a caution on her record for the next three years.

The Conduct and Competence Committee, which met in London, said she can continue to practise but will have to declare the caution if she applies for a different job.

From the Daily Telegraph

14 July 2008

Sir- Sam Leith's article (Comment, July 12) is another depressing example of the absolutism of so-called liberals. They are liberal only with beliefs similar to theirs.

Surely, the point at issue in the case of the Islington registrar is that of respect for conscience. Such respect has for long been the hallmark of civilised nations and has especially characterised British society. Conscientious objection has a recognised place in the context of war. People cannot be forced, against their conscience, to participate in armed conflict, although, of course, they must contribute to society in other ways. Would Mr Leith remove this right, especially if it is, as it often is, based on religious belief?

I see the future for legislation very differently from Mr Leith. There must be more, not less, recognition of conscience in public law, whether that is on questions of adoption and of government support for the excellent work done by faith-based adoption agencies, or of participation in recent innovations such as civil partnership ceremonies, or, indeed, in carrying out certain kinds of medical research or procedures which are contrary to people's beliefs about the sanctity of the human person - and the public good.

It is such respect for conscience that should be at the heart of government policy regarding faith communities, rather than ill-conceived and misguided notions about the recognition of the religious law of particular communities in terms of the law of the land.

Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester

You can find this online at: http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.650/pub_detail.asp

By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.

Part I: Power, Money, and Science Unite to Exterminate the World's Poor

(NEW YORK - C-FAM) A book recently published by Harvard University Press explains how eugenics united some of the richest and most powerful elites of the twentieth century into a movement "to remake humanity by controlling the population of the world," answering to no one and bringing untold misery upon the world's poor. The book, "Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population," was written by Columbia University historian Matthew Connelly and shows why today's reproductive rights advocates are "faithfully reciting a eugenic catechism without the faintest idea where it comes from or where it can lead."

In 1952, at a secret, invitation-only gathering in Colonial Williamsburg, John D. Rockefeller III brought together what would become the modern population control establishment. Setting the agenda for the following decades were the heads of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, National Academy of Sciences, and top scientists "from embryology to economics," including past and present Nobel Prize winners.

Catholic Medical Association spokesman says, "This would spell the death of the rights of conscience"

 By Hilary White
 
LONDON, July 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The British Medical Association's (BMA) policy-making body will consider a proposal to remove the rights of conscience that allow doctors to refuse to commit or refer women for abortions. The proposal will be considered at the BMA's upcoming Annual General Meeting, 7-10 July.
 
Dr. Tony Cole, of the Catholic Medical Association, said, "This would spell the death of the rights of conscience. This takes away the right of conscience already guaranteed by statute. This is open to legal challenge."
 
Dr. Cole's comments were supported by Dr. Majid Khatme of the Islamic Medical Association, who said Muslim doctors were "very unhappy" about the scheme. "You cannot force me, as a doctor, to do things against my conscience. Something very dangerous is going on," he said.
 
The motion was proposed for the BMA's forthcoming Annual General Meeting by Dr. Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP and medical doctor who is known to colleagues as "Dr. Death" for his eager support of unlimited abortion and euthanasia. Dr. Harris is a member of the British Medical Association (BMA) Medical Ethics Committee.
 
Dr. Harris's motion proposes to change the rules so that doctors with conscientious objection to abortion may not see patients with unplanned pregnancies. The motion would force them to refer women wanting abortions to other doctors. To do this, it proposes to reinterpret the General Medical Council guidance on personal belief and clinical practice.
 
Catholic doctors said they will argue at the meeting that it would be unlawful to deny the right of conscientious objection that is enshrined in Section 4 of Britain's 1967 Abortion Act. Dr. Cole added, "A doctor whose conditions of service (were) affected by this might be able to seek redress through the courts."
 
Cardiff Archbishop Peter Smith, the head of the Department of Christian Responsibility and Citizenship of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, said, "The right of conscience is a fundamental human right. The doctor's right to act according to his conscience remains firmly embedded both in medical practice and in the law."
 
The British Medical Association is one of the most ardent supporters of abortion in the UK. At last year's conference, the membership at the annual conference voted 67 percent to 33 percent to remove the necessity for two doctors to sign approval for abortions.
 
Dr. Harris also tabled an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, that moves on to the final Report Stage in Parliament next week, to remove the need for two doctors to sign consent to an abortion.

By Hilary White

LONDON, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Doubtless in anticipation of the apparently imminent passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, the UK's embryo research authority has granted a license to scientists to begin work to create human/pig cloned hybrid embryos. The Labour government's proposed bill, however, would, if passed into law, do away with the necessity of researchers even asking for individual licenses.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) granted the license to the Clinical Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick, who want to make the embryos in order to produce embryonic stem cells.

Professor Justin St. John told the Daily Telegraph: "We will take skin cells from patients who have a mutation for certain kinds of heart disease...and put them into pig eggs after their chromosomes have been removed. We will then make embryos so that we can attempt to derive embryonic stem cells which will allow us to study some of the molecular mechanisms associated with these heart diseases."

The researchers say they hope to use the cells to learn the origins and workings of certain types of heart disease and provide models for drug testing. "We will effectively be creating and studying these diseases in a dish," Professor St. John said.

The initial stages of the research will be focused on learning to create human/animal hybrid clones more efficiently.

The Christian Legal Centre responded to the announcement with a warning that this was only a "foretaste of things to come." Andrea Minichiello Williams, Director of the Christian Legal Centre, also argued that the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act does not give the HFEA the power to grant such licences.

"The HFEA has not met the 1990 Act's stringent standards for granting licences, in as much as these licences are neither 'necessary' nor 'desirable'," said Mrs Williams.

"No significant advances have been made in embryonic stem cell research, while great advances in disease treatment have been seen in research on adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood cells," she said.

"When other viable alternatives to such controversial research already exist, such as human induced pluripotent stem cells, then it cannot be claimed that such new research is either necessary or desirable."

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) have called on supporters to contact their MPs to defeat the HFE bill, currently moving into its final stages in Parliament.

Mrs. Williams added, "When we are talking about making human pig clones, we should lament our dulling of conscience as a society which permits such embryos to exist. This underscores the deplorable state of bioethics in which the UK now finds itself."

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- After medical associations in the United States caused headaches for pro-life doctors by potentially approving a policy requiring abortion referrals for accreditation, now pro-life physicians in England are concerned. Dr. Evan Harris, the pro-abortion MP and member of the British Medical Association Medical Ethics Committee, has tabled a motion for the BMA's forthcoming Annual General Meeting July 7-10. According to the leading British pro-life group SPUC, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn, Harris's motion would marginalize doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion, specifically by effectively barring them from seeing patients with unplanned pregnancies. The Christian Medical Fellowship led by Dr. Peter Saunders, has published a comprehensive analysis of Harris's motion and his parliamentary agenda for more abortion, according to SPUC director John Smeaton. Meanwhile, two medical students went skydiving on Saturday to raise awareness of the pressure on medical staff to take part in abortion against their consciences. Siobhan Fearon and Abigail Smith, both 19, did the jump parachute jump in Lancashire, England. Smith recently wrote, “I had to help a close friend deal with the after-effects of an abortion. Seeing first-hand the impact an abortion has on such a young life has really challenged my views on the procedure. It has made me more determined to help women make sure that they make the right decision for them and their unborn child when faced with crisis pregnancies in my career." The event will raise money for SPUC through sponsorship.

From Wesley J. Smith

Big money is out there for the brightest minds to shove utilitarianism and the goal of human enhancement down our throats. Australian Professor Julian Savulescu (now in the UK)--who I have seen debate and believe me he is one scary cat--has just picked up an 800 thousand pound grant to begin a eugenics, er neuroethics, center at Oxford. From Bioedge's report:

Professor Savulescu said: “Neuroscience studies the brain and mind, and thereby some of the most profound aspects of human existence. In the last decade, advances in imaging and manipulating the brain have raised ethical challenges, particularly about the moral limits of the use of such technology, leading to the new discipline of neuroethics.

Professor Savulescu has become notorious for arguing that we should genetically enhance the human species by improving IQ, behaviour, mood, character and morality. “Biological manipulation to increase opportunity is ethical,� he once said. If we have an obligation to treat and prevent disease, we have an obligation to try to manipulate these characteristics to give an individual the best opportunity of the best life.� He has even argued that parents have a moral responsibility to select the best children they could have. It will be interesting to see what sort of ideas about brain manipulation will emerge from the well-funded new centre

So, they make up a new field whole cloth dedicated to destroying universal human equality and the intrinsic worth of merely being human and the money comes pouring in. And with the money and the prestigious academic affiliation comes awesome power to influence young and bright minds who are society's leaders of tomorrow. And, being very bright, they see which way the financial winds are blowing and what they need to believe--or say they believe-in order to climb the ladder of success.

What chance do you think there would be for someone as bright as Savulescu, and with the same credentials, to receive such major funding and Oxford offices if he held opposite views? Good luck with that and don't call us, we'll call you.

But that's the high academy/foundation nexus today. And these folk are determined to tear down what they consider the ancien regime. And unless "the folk" stand up to it, the forces that be will bulldoze the very concept of universal human rights directly into a landfill--claiming as they go that they are the "enlightened" ones, the "brights."

This is exactly how it was with the first eugenics movement. The people who paid were not the connected but the powerless. And those who urged their sterilization and even killing were at the top of the social/academic/political/legal and even liberal religious heaps.

Bitter? A bit, I admit. Scared? A lot.

From Wesley J. Smith, 18 June 2008.

I have been warning and warning that a virulent anti-humanism is becoming rampant on the left side of the scale, and even within the MSM. A site on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (roughly akin to the BBC) Website--Planet Slayer--specifically, "Professor Schpinkee's Greenhouse Calculator" tells you to enter and "find out when you should die!" I kid you not.

Hit the start button and find out when you should become six feet under (I assume cremation is worse than burial for global warming). I answered the questions roughly, and found I should have died at age 7.4. The pig (me) blew up in a bloody mess.

Realize that this is being sold to children and it is shameful and profoundly nihilistic. And it illustrates again how profoundly anti-human and pro death certain aspects of our culture are becoming.

As Andrew Bolt, a blogger for the Herald Sun noted:

What a lovely insight into the green philosophy. Children should die to save the planet. Scott [Bolt's son], I calculated, should have died at age 4.2.

A little joke, you will say. A mere attention grabber in a good cause. Trouble is, though, that there really is an insanely anti-human bent to deep green preaching on global warming, and there really are believers who feel only too keenly the planet is doomed by our sin, and humans must vanish.

Take the influential Gaia preacher Professor James Lovelock, whose latest book, The Revenge Of Gaia, calls for nine-tenths of humanity to vanish to "save" the planet from warming. Or hear the ABC's Ockham's Razor air a lecture by a former academic arguing we must "put something in the water, a virus that would be specific to the human reproductive system and would make a substantial proportion of the population infertile."

And see the lengths to which some true believers now go. There's Toni Vernelli, from animal liberation group PETA, who aborted her baby because "it would have been immoral to give birth to a child that I felt strongly would only be a burden to the world." There's Sarah Irving, from Ethical Consumer magazine, who sterilised herself because it "was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do" in a warming world.

In "The Silence of the Asparagus" I warned:

What is clear, however, is that Switzerland's enshrining of "plant dignity" is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns. It also reflects the triumph of a radical anthropomorphism that views elements of the natural world as morally equivalent to people.

Why is this happening? Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights.

And once we see "the planet" as personal, it is easier to see humans as the vermin good only for eradication.

From Wesley J. Smith, 18 June 2008.

The doctors in the Winnipeg Samuel Golubchuk case are intent on showing his family and society who is boss. Two more have resigned rather than provide care. From the story:

CBC News has learned that two other doctors--Bojan Paunovic and David Easton--have also said they will no longer care for Golubchuk.
"What I can tell you is that there are three critical care doctors who have recently resigned from the [intensive care unit] shift schedule at the Grace Hospital," said Heidi Graham, spokeswoman for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. The WRHA is working with other physicians to ensure the hospital can continue to provide critical care despite the loss of the three doctors, Graham said.

A few thoughts: First, this seems a power play to me--even though I have no doubt that the physicians sincerely believe that maintaining Mr. Golubchuk is the wrong way to go. Second, in their determination, they are, in effect, abandoning other patients in their care. Third, the court is precisely where this case belongs. If wanted life-sustaining treatment is really so egregious that it is torture--rather than merely a matter of a profound disagreement over values--doctors and hospital bioethics committees should have to prove it in an open court with full rights of due process and appeal for the patient/family. Moreover, I think the hospital should pay the legal expenses of the patient/family otherwise it becomes David versus Goliath.

And now, let's ponder this paradox. The Bioethics and Medical Establishments generally insist on the right to withhold wanted life sustaining treatment based on their views about the quality of the patient's life and/or the proper use of the resources involved. In contrast, they also insist that doctors and other medical professionals appalled by birth control, Plan B, RU 486, abortion, or (eventually) assisted suicide should not be able to opt out based on their moral principles because patients have a right to these services. Yet, the futile care cases involve life and death while the others usually are elective in the sense that there are not lethal consequences for the denial of services.

In reality, it isn't a paradox because the medical issues are actually the fronts for the real contest, which is about determining the first principle moral values that will govern general society--as, when I think about it, are many if not most of the issues that we discuss here at SHS.

From Wesley J. Smith, 15 June 2008.

So many of these adult stem cell success stories come to me now, that I am unable to post them all here at SHS. Two recent examples: A new adult stem cell therapy is successfully restoring vision to people with chemical injuries and a genetic defect that causes impaired vision. From the story:

Using stem cells from tissue donors, surgeons grew the cells in the laboratory before transplanting them onto the patients' eyes.

Dr Julie Daniels, who is leading the research team, will present the results at a conference on regenerative medicine being held in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, today. She said: "Before the surgery the patients were barely able to recognise when someone was waving a hand in front of their face but we have restored their vision to the point they can read three to four lines down the eye chart."

Nineteen patients have now received the treatment, known as limbal stem cell therapy, at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Meanwhile, scientists have discovered a molecule that may one day lead to important regenerative techniques with a patient's own nerve stem cells. From the story:

Inspired by a chance discovery during another experiment, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have created a small molecule that stimulates nerve stem cells to begin maturing into nerve cells in culture.

This finding might someday allow a person's own nerve stem cells to be grown outside the body, stimulated into maturity, and then re-implanted as working nerve cells to treat various diseases, the researchers said. "This provides a critical starting point for neuro-regenerative medicine and brain cancer chemotherapy," said Dr. Jenny Hsieh, assistant professor of molecular biology and senior author of the paper, which appears online today and in the June 17 issue of Nature Chemical Biology

This is the opposite of no news being good news. With adult stem cell research, too much news to fit manageably within a blog format is very good news, indeed.

From Wesley J. Smith, 13 June 2008.

Cloning reduces procreation to a matter of mere manufacture and transforms human life into an instrumentalized natural resource, whether that life is a nascent cloned embryo created and destroyed for its stem cells or women exploited for their eggs--since an egg is required for each cloning attempt.

One reason the human cloning agenda has stalled is the lack of human eggs. I have been warning that researchers are more than willing to risk the health, fertility--and even the lives--of women to obtain these eggs, and if volunteers won't put themselves at risk, then they will promote an egg commodities market. And now in Nature News, we see that coming to pass. From the story:

US stem-cell researchers are calling for changes to state laws that prohibit compensating women who donate eggs for research. The laws, in leading stem-cell research states such as Massachusetts and California, are crippling the promising field of ‘therapeutic cloning’ that could produce useful embryonic stem-cell lines for studying various human diseases, they say.

It took Kevin Eggan and Douglas Melton, of Harvard University's Stem Cell Institute, two years and US $100,000 in local advertising to secure a single egg donor for their attempt to develop embryonic stem-cell lines to model diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The group, which obtained fewer than ten eggs, completed its experiments early this year, Eggan announced last month at a meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction in Kona, Hawaii. They are not yet ready to discuss results.

The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) guidelines barring compensation were set in part to protect poor people from being exploited by labs that might offer large sums of money--along the lines of rules barring compensation for organ donation. But Alta Charo, a lawyer and bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison, who liaised with the NAS committee that set donor-compensation guidelines in 2005, says the move was as much political as ethical. In California, supporters of Proposition 71, which allows funding for stem-cell and cloning research in the absence of federal funding, adopted compensation prohibition in part, Charo claims, "to assuage a fringe group of the women's movement" that was aligned against the assisted-reproduction community.

In other words, all of those assurances about protecting women are nothing more than temporary expedients that will be swept away as soon as it is deemed politically feasible. And if the assurances made in this area are nothing but cow manure, so too are the equally oleaginous promises to limit the lives of cloned embryos to 14 days, and to never engage in fetal farming, and to never want reproductive cloning. The mendacity of the pro cloning advocates in establishing "self limiting"--but really made to be broken--"ethical" guidelines makes me sick.

Next stop will be the developing world and biological colonialism. We need to not only bar buying and selling eggs for research in this country, but also have international protocols to govern the matter.

From Wesley J. Smith, 17 June 2008.

Apparently many doctors don't tell cancer patients when they enter the terminal stage of the disease. From the story:

Only one-third of terminally ill cancer patients in a new, federally funded study said their doctors had discussed end-of-life care. Surprisingly, patients who had these talks were no more likely to become depressed than those who did not, the study found. They were less likely to spend their final days in hospitals, tethered to machines. They avoided costly, futile care. And their loved ones were more at peace after they died.

The story proceeds to inaccurately describe AB 2747 as being about making sure people are told when they are dying when its real purpose is to open the door to backdoor assisted suicide via dehydration and terminal sedation, and thereby corrupt palliative care properly understood. Also, the bill defines terminal illness as one year to live--a time so far out that a doctor could be wildly inaccurate. But I have discussed that bill, its ultimate purpose, and media ignorance and biases before--and will again. So, for now, let's focus on the primary thrust of the story.

This is a sensitive issue, but patients deserve the truth without taking away hope in the understanding that there are few sure things in life--even with cancer. My dad's doctor told me and I told him--which for us was a very good way to go because we were so tight. His cancer was terminal but there was a small chance for life extenstion with chemo. Dad took the option and had a very good year as a result--which the doctor had not expected--during which he traveled and enjoyed life. We put him into hospice as he entered his final few months of decline.

An even better example: A friend of mine had a seizure. It was caused by lung cancer that had metastasized to the brain. The cancer was inoperable other than to remove the lung. He was told he had 3 months to live--eight years ago. He lived because he took every aggressive measure he could--and he believes, because of a whole lot of prayer.

On the other hand, as the story notes, not being candid impedes the patient from receiving proper hospice care opportunities. Indeed, I have another friend who did not get into hospice until two weeks before he died because the doctor refused to tell him it was in a terminal stage--and he only got into hospice after his wife forced a proper referral after I threw a fit about the unalleviated pain he was in.

Part of the problem, I think, is our hospice system. For those of us in the USA, hospice is often perceived as a kind of "abandon hope all ye who enter here" matter because in order to receive the services, patients must eschew all curative and most life sustaining treatment. When I interviewed Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of modern hospice, she told me that was a profound weakness of the American system. In the UK, such a choice does not have to be made and people more readily enter hospice care knowing that if they want that last shot of chemo, they can have it (leaving aside for the moment, the problems with the NHS).

If we want more people in hospice, if we want to give them hope while still being able to care for them best when they are dying, a good way would be to change our hospice approach. Then perhaps doctors would be less reticent to tell patients that it looks like their time has come.

From Wesley J. Smith

A cancer patient killed himself a day after being told he had been refused a wonder drug by his local primary care trust.Terminally-ill Albert Baxter, 75, committed suicide hours after learning he had been turned down for a drug which could have prolonged his life and shrunk his tumour.

In desperation, the cancer sufferer offered to pay for the drug, only to be told that he would have to foot the bill for his entire treatment which he could not afford. The pensioner, who was diagnosed with renal cancer in January 2007, had been told by his oncologist, Dr Fiona McKinna that the drug Sutent was his only hope...

But when he learned that his appeal had been rejected he returned to his home in Eastbourne, East Sussex. He was found dead the next day by his partner with a bin liner over his head in June last year. His partner of 30 years, Barrie Curryer, 70, a retired nurse, hit out at the postcode lottery for cancer treatment.He said: "What really upset him was that he worked all his life and paid into the health system and was refused treatment."

From Wesley J. Smith

ALS, called Lou Gehrig's disease in the USA and motor neurone disease in the UK, is the bloody flag often waved by euthanasia activists as a reason to legalize mercy killing. "Of course he wants to die," they will say. and then some will assert falsely and cruelly that death from ALS will agonizing by choking on saliva, even though patients receiving proper care do not die choking.

My last hospice patient died peacefully in his sleep from ALS. While I was with him, euthanasia was in the news with ALS patients featured on ABC Nightline as wanting euthanasia. Bob was fit to be tied! After being suicidal for more than two years--because he felt so abandoned by his friends, not due to the disease--he told me that his ending period was the best time of his life. (Yet, had assisted suicide been legal, he would have probably missed the good times--or so he told me. But people from Compassion and Choices say that people like Bob can't commit suicide because their lives are already over.) And he is not the only ALS patient I have known with that incredibly positive attitude.

Now, there is some journal evidence that ALS patients quality of life is not unremitting horror. From the story:

Although an outside observer would have expected ALS patients to be depressed, as the disease is so serious, this was only the case for 10% of patients. This means that the proportion of depressive disorders is only slightly greater than in the overall population.

In view of the public discussion on euthanasia and assisted suicide, the authors think it essential that there should be a scientific investigation of the quality of life, as seen by the patient. The present studies show that the quality of life of patients with a fatal degenerative disease does not necessarily have to differ from that of healthy subjects.

In an accompanying editorial, Professor Hans Förstl points out the significance of these studies for the discussion of measures to shorten life. These could no longer be simply justified by saying that the patient had to be freed from his suffering. Förstl commented that the suffering is seen by the observer and not felt by the patient.

Not that the pro euthanasia types will care. For them, it's an ideological quest, not an empirically driven cause.

'To say, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel'

WorldNetDaily

State officials have offered a lung cancer patient the option of having the Oregon Health Plan, set up in 1994 to ration health care, pay for an assisted suicide but not for the chemotherapy prescribed by her physician.

The story appears to be a happy ending for Barbara Wagner, who has been notified by a drug manufacturer that it will provide the expensive medication, estimated to cost $4,000 a month, for the first year and then allow her to apply for further treatment, according to a report in the Eugene Register-Guard.

But the word from the state was coverage for palliative care, which would include the state's assisted suicide program, would be allowed but not coverage for the cancer treatment drugs.

"To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel," Wagner told the newspaper. "I get angry. Who do they think they are?"

She said she was devastated when the state health program refused coverage for Tarceva, the drug her doctor ordered for treatment of her lung cancer.

The refusal came in an unsigned letter from LIPA, the company that runs the state program in that part of Oregon.

"We had no intent to upset her, but we do need to point out the options available to her under the Oregon Health Plan," Dr. John Sattenspiel, senior medical director for LIPA, told the newspaper.

"I understand the way it was interpreted. I'm not sure how we can lift that. The reality is, at some level (doctor-assisted suicide) could be considered as a palliative or comfort care measure."

The 64-year-old Wagner lives in a low-income apartment in Springfield with her dog, the newspaper said.

State officials say the Oregon Health Plan prioritizes treatments, with diagnoses and ailments deemed the most important, such as pregnancy, childbirth and preventive care for children at the top of the list. Other treatments rank below, officials said.

"We can't cover everything for everyone," Dr. Walter Shaffer, a spokesman for the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs, told the paper. "Taxpayer dollars are limited for publicly funded programs. We try to come up with policies that provide the most good for the most people."

He said many cancer treatments are a high priority, but others reflect the "desire on the part of the framers of this list to not cover treatments that are futile."

Wagner, however, is ending up with the treatment needed when her lung cancer, in remission for two years, returned.

She reported a representative for the pharmaceutical company called and notified her the drug would be provided for at least the first year.

"We have been warning for years that this was a possibility in Oregon," said the "Bioethics Pundit" on the Bioethics blog. "Medicaid is rationed, meaning that some treatments are not covered. But assisted suicide is always covered."

"This isn't the first time this has happened either," the blogger wrote. "A few years ago a patient who needed a double organ transplant was denied the treatment but would have been eligible for state-financed assisted suicide. But not to worry. Just keep repeating the mantra: There are no abuses with Oregon's assisted suicide law. There are no abuses. There are no abuses!