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Showing posts with label Terminal Disease. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terminal Disease. Show all posts

Friday, October 11, 2019

Dying is a Moral Event. NJ Law Caught Up With Morality

T. Patrick Hill
Star-Ledge Guest Column
Originally posted September 9, 2019

New Jersey’s Medical-Aid-in-Dying legislation authorizes physicians to issue a prescription to end the lives of their patients who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, are expected to die within six months, and have requested their physicians to help them do so. While the legislation does not require physicians to issue the prescription, it does require them to transfer a patient’s medical records to another physician who has agreed to prescribe the lethal medication.

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The Medical Aid in Dying Act goes even further, concluding that its passage serves the public’s interests, even as it endorses the “right of a qualified terminally ill patient …to obtain medication that the patient may choose to self-administer in order to bring about the patient’s humane and dignified death.”

The info is here.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

New Jersey will allow terminally ill patients to end their lives

Taylor Romine
CNN.com
Originally posted July 1, 2019

Terminally ill adults in New Jersey will now be able to ask for medical help to end their lives.

In April, Gov. Phil Murphy signed the Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act. It goes into effect Thursday.

It allows adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live to get a prescription for life-ending medication.

Other jurisdictions that allow physician-assisted suicide are: California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Hawaii, Montana and the District of Columbia.

The law requires either a psychiatrist or psychologist determine that the patient has the mental capacity to make the decision. The prescription is a series of self-administered pills that can be taken at home.

"Allowing residents with terminal illnesses to make end-of-life choices for themselves is the right thing to do," Murphy said in a statement.

The info is here.

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

N.J. approves bill giving terminally ill people the right to end their lives

Susan Livio
www.nj.com
Originally posted March 25, 2019

New Jersey is poised to become the eighth state to allow doctors to write a lethal prescription for terminally ill patients who want to end their lives.

The state Assembly voted 41-33 with four abstentions Monday to pass the “Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act." Minutes later, the state Senate approved the bill 21-16.

Gov. Phil Murphy later issued a statement saying he would sign the measure into law.

“Allowing terminally ill and dying residents the dignity to make end-of-life decisions according to their own consciences is the right thing to do," the Democratic governor said. "I look forward to signing this legislation into law.”

The measure (A1504) would take effect four months after it is signed.

Susan Boyce, 55 of Rumson, smiled and wept after the final vote.

“I’ve been working on this quite a while," said Boyce, who is diagnosed with a terminal auto immune disease, Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, and needs an oxygen tank to breathe.

The info is here.

Thursday, July 26, 2018

Number of Canadians choosing medically assisted death jumps 30%

Kathleen Harris
www.cbc.ca
Originally posted June 21, 2018

There were 1,523 medically assisted deaths in Canada in the last six-month reporting period — a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous six months.

Cancer was the most common underlying medical condition in reported assisted death cases, cited in about 65 per cent of all medically assisted deaths, according to the report from Health Canada.

Using data from Statistics Canada, the report shows medically assisted deaths accounted for 1.07 per cent of all deaths in the country over those six months. That is consistent with reports from other countries that have assisted death regimes, where the figure ranges from 0.3 to four per cent.

The information is here.

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Canada Legalizes Physician-Assisted Dying

By Merrit Kennedy
NPR.org
Originally posted June 18, 2016

After weeks of debate, Canadian lawmakers have passed legislation to legalize physician-assisted death.

That makes Canada "one of the few nations where doctors can legally help sick people die," as Reuters reports.

The new law "limits the option to the incurably ill, requires medical approval and mandates a 15-day waiting period," as The Two-Way has reported.

The Canadian government introduced the bill in April and it passed a final Senate vote Friday. It includes strict criteria that patients must meet to obtain a doctor's help in dying.

The article is here.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

California doctor opens end-of-life clinic

by Michael Cook
BioEdge.org
Originally published June 11, 2016

California’s right-to-die law was rolled out this week and at least one doctor immediately opened up a dedicated assisted suicide clinic in San Francisco.

At Bay Area End of Life Options, Dr Lonny Shavelson, a well-known advocate of assisted suicide, will advise people who are wondering whether they ought to end their lives.

Dr Shavelson denies that he will be operating a drive-in suicide service. He says that he wants to work with patients to explore all the legal and therapeutic options. "When somebody says to a physician that they want to talk about the End of Life Option Act and says, 'Can you give me a prescription that will end my life?' I want them to tell me why," he told the San Jose Mercury. "A major goal of physicians is to make this (prescription) not happen."

His fees will be US$200 for an initial consultation plus $1800 if the patient is qualified and wishes to continue.

The article is here.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Panelists Debate Morality Of Assisted Suicide Bill

By Jenna Rudolfsky
The Cornell Daily Sun
Originally posted April 18, 2016

Panelists from the Cornell Law School hosted a discussion entitled “Death with Dignity” to debate the controversial issue of assisted suicide and pending New York state legislation last Thursday.

If the “Death with Dignity” bill passes, New York will become the sixth state to allow terminally ill patients to end their own lives with prescribed lethal medication, according to MSNBC.

Panelist Prof. Daryl Bem, psychology, whose wife committed assisted suicide, discussed her struggles with Alzheimer’s disease in explaining why he is in favor of assisted suicide.

The article is here.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Canadian Prime Minister Seeks to Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide

By Ian Austen
The New York Times
Originally posted April 14, 2016

The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced legislation on Thursday to legalize physician-assisted suicide for Canadians with serious medical conditions.

The proposed law limits physician-assisted suicides to Canadians and residents, who are eligible to participate in the national health care system, preventing a surge in medical tourism among the dying from other countries. Assisted suicide is legal in only a few American states, including Oregon and Vermont.

Under Canada’s proposed law, people who want to die will be able to either commit suicide with medication provided by their doctors or have the doctors administer the dose. Family members will be allowed to assist patients with their death.

The article is here.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Depression, Capacity, and a Request to Discontinue Life-Sustaining Treatment.

A. M. Pena
American Journal of Bioethics (2015); 15(7): 70-1.

The Right to Refuse Life Sustaining Treatment

There is ethical and legal consensus that a patient has the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment (LST), as an expression of autonomy-based principles, when the patient demonstrates an appropriate degree of capacity, the decision is consistent with the patient's preferences and free from coercion, and when the burdens exceed the benefits of continued treatment.  For the purposes of this discussion, I assume that the left ventricular assistance device (LVAD) is a form of LST and that it may be ethically permissible to deactivate the device, which is largely in accordance with professional and ethical consensus.  As with other forms of LST, if the device is deactivated, then the patient would die from underlying physiological causes, namely, heart disease.  My objective for this commentary, however, is to discuss whether depression can impair capacity to the extent that it is an ethical contraindication for withdrawing LST.

The article is here.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Opponents fail to derail the state's right-to-die measure, but they may yet try again in court

By The Times Editorial Board
The Los Angeles Times
Originally posted January 7, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

The group behind the referendum attempt, known as Seniors Against Suicide, says it is now contemplating a lawsuit to stop the law's implementation. The law is set to go into effect 90 days after the state Legislature concludes the still-open special session on healthcare.

We respect the law's opponents, including the Roman Catholic Church and some disability-rights advocates; they waged a passionate battle — both moral and practical — against it. But we don't share their fears. There is no evidence that a law this narrow would lead uncaring health insurers or family members to coerce sick patients to kill themselves in order to save on medical costs.

To the contrary, two decades of experience with Oregon's landmark Death with Dignity Act suggests that it will be used sparingly. In the first 17 years, just 1,327 people in Oregon requested a life-ending prescription from a doctor. More than a third of them then chose not to use the prescription.

The article is here.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Who Should Have The Right To Die?

By Nerdwriter
Originally posted October 28, 2015

Doctor-assisted suicide continues to be hotly debated in the United States, but the ideas – and specifically the words – used to support it have evolved in fascinating ways. Over nearly a century, there has been a shift away from terms related to death towards a focus on autonomy and dignity, drawing in no small part on the ideas of the 19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill.


Wednesday, June 10, 2015

The Gray Areas Of Assisted Suicide

By April Dembosky
Kaiser Health News
Originally published May 21, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

People don’t talk about it, but it happens. Just over 3 percent of U.S. doctors said they have written a prescription for life-ending medication, according to an anonymous survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1998. Almost 5 percent of doctors reported giving a patient a lethal injection.

Other studies suggest oncologists, and doctors on the West Coast, are more likely to be asked for life-ending medication, or euthanasia, in which the doctor administers the lethal dose.

“Those practices are undercover. They are covert,” says Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion & Choices, an advocacy group. “To the degree that patients are part of the decision-making, it is by winks and nods.”

Coombs Lee’s organization helped tell the story of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman who moved from California to Oregon to be able to end her life legally after she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Now the organization is backing legislation in California to make it legal for doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients who request it.

The entire article is here.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Stigma Around Physician-Assisted Dying Lingers

By Clyde Haberman
The New York Times
Originally posted on March 22, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Arguments, pro and con, have not changed much over the years. Assisted dying was and is anathema to many religious leaders, notably in the Roman Catholic Church. For the American Medical Association, it remains “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.”

Some opponents express slippery-slope concerns: that certain patients might feel they owe it to their overburdened families to call it quits. That the poor and the uninsured, disproportionately, will have their lives cut short. That medication might be prescribed for the mentally incompetent. That doctors might move too readily to bring an end to those in the throes of depression. “We should address what would give them purpose, not give them a handful of pills,” Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a prominent oncologist and medical ethicist, told Retro Report.

The entire article is here.

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Supreme Court strikes down Canada’s assisted suicide laws

By Laura Stone
Global News
Originally posted February 6, 2015

Canada’s high court has struck down the country’s laws against physician-assisted suicide.

That means it will no longer be against the law for a doctor to help someone who is terminally ill to end their life – but the new rules won’t kick in for a year.

And it can only be done under several conditions.

In a unanimous 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the Criminal Code laws prohibiting physician-assisted death infringes Section 7 of the Charter, which states that everyone has right to life, liberty and security of the person.

The entire article and videos are here.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Ms. Maynard was right, Assisted Suicide Should be Legal Everywhere

By Mark Bernstein
Impact Ethics
Originally posted November 10, 2014

Brittany Maynard was in the prime her life when she was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, the most malignant and deadly form of brain cancer. The best available treatment consists of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy (a pill, not intravenous) along with steroids to decrease brain swelling. Sometimes experimental treatments are undertaken. In spite of all this the vast majority of patients are dead within two years. Often patients suffer the side effects of the treatment, like hair loss, lethargy, depressed immunity causing infections, and facial bloating and weight gain from the prolonged use of steroids. Eventually they lose brain function like the ability to speak or move an arm or walk and ultimately they lose cognitive function. As a senior neurosurgeon who has dedicated his life to the care of patients with Ms. Maynard’s type of tumor and has treated thousands of such patients, I can attest to the poor quality of life many patients with glioblastoma endure.

The entire story is here.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Prolonging Life: Legal, Ethical, and Social Dilemmas

The Nour Foundation
Exploring Meaning and Commonality in Human Experience




An absolutely fascinating discussion on end of life issues.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Evolving State of Physician-Assisted Suicide

Massachusetts voters soon will decide whether to become the third state to legalize the contentious end-of-life care option for the terminally ill.

By Jaime Joyce
The Atlantic Monthly
Originally published July 16, 2012

Should terminally ill patients have the right to kill themselves? Voters in Massachusetts will soon decide. Last Wednesday, the Secretary of the Commonwealth announced that on November 6, 2012, when Bay State voters go to the polls to pick the next President, they will also have their say on a ballot measure called the Death with Dignity Act. If passed, the law would make Massachusetts the third state to give adults diagnosed with six months or less to live the option to end their lives using a lethal dose of doctor-prescribed medication.

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A study released by the Health Research and Education Trust shows that Americans are living longer lives than ever before. As a result, more individuals and families will face difficult questions about end-of-life care. In 2011, the oldest Baby Boomers turned 65. By 2030, the number of Boomers between 66 and 84 years old will climb to 61 million, and six out of 10 will be managing chronic health conditions. For the elderly and others facing terminal illness, doctors have numerous ways to prolong life. Palliative and hospice care are available to help patients find peace and comfort in their final days. But there are some people who want another option, which is the right to end suffering by taking their own life at a time and place of their choosing.


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Others posts about end of life issues and Death with Dignity can be found by using the "search" function on the right hand side of this blog.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Professional Competence in the Face of Life-Threatening Illness

The new issue of *Professional Psychology* includes an article: "Preventing Problems of Professional Competence in the Face of Life-Threatening Illness."

The authors are W. Brad Johnson & Jeffrey E. Barnett.

Psychologists are human. Like our clients, we are nearly certain to encounter difficult life stressors such as relational break-downs, emotional low points, phase-of-life problems, serious medical challenges, or the onset of cognitive decline. Sadly, being a psychologist does little to insulate us from life's tribulations.

At some point during his or her career, nearly every mental health professional will confront a significant health problem. Medical issues may run the gamut from relatively minor (e.g., pneumonia, minor surgery, thyroid dysfunction) to life-threatening (e.g., cardiovascular disease requiring open heart surgery, neuromuscular disorders with a short life-expectancy, various forms of cancer).

Because many psychologists expect to work beyond the typical retirement age, with nearly a fifth reporting that they plan to work until death (Guy, Stark, Poelstra, & Souder, 1987), the probability of life-threatening medical diagnoses occurring during the course of one's career are significant.

But even early career psychologists are vulnerable to life-altering and potentially fatal medical problems (Philip, 1993).

Recent epidemiologic data for U. S. adults between the ages of 45 and 64 indicate that 13% suffer from some form of heart disease and 9.4% have been diagnosed with cancer; between the ages of 65 and 74, these numbers jump to 25.8% for heart disease and 22.5% for cancer (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 2010).

Although practitioner emotional health is considered essential and fundamental to the delivery of competent services (Vasquez, 1992), few things may threaten a psychologist's emotional stability more acutely than the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness.

Unfortunately, psychologists are not always effective when it comes to accepting their own vulnerabilities, taking time for self-care, and identifying decrements in their own competence due to either emotional or physical distress (Barnett & Johnson, 2008).

In this article, we direct our focus to the prospect of a life-threatening illness in the psychologist and the subsequent implications for professional competence.

By life-threatening we mean a terminal disease or a progressive medical condition leading to increasing disability and, in most cases, premature death.

Although psychologists are enjoined by the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association; APA, 2010) to ensure their own competence, psychologists struggling with life-altering medical problems may be especially vulnerable to problems in this area.

We highlight how seriously ill and subsequently distressed psychologists may be ineffective at self-assessing and monitoring their professional competence, as well as in making essential decisions about continued clinical practice.

We conclude with numerous recommendations for psychologists designed to both prevent and manage threats to professional competence caused by a life-threatening illness.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this information.