Today’s Topics: Feb. 19, 2021
1. Covid-era response to dementia
2. New Mexico House passes aid-in-dying legislation
3. ND House rejects MAID
4. Op-ed supporting MAiD in CT
5. Canadian Senator with disability speaks in support of MAID
bill
6. Grandson shares personal story of grandmother’s death
7. Wrongful Prolongation of Life
Message: 1
‘We Are Going to Keep You Safe, Even if It Kills Your Spirit’
New York Times
By Katie Engelhart, Feb. 19, 2021
Katie Engelhart is the author of the forthcoming book “The Inevitable:
Dispatches on the Right to Die.”
Noteworthy article about the Covid-era response to dementia.
“People with dementia ‘may not adequately comprehend, execute, or
recall any of the suggested public health measures,’ as the
Alzheimer’s Association puts it. Also, it’s not possible to
social-distance when you live in a nursing home, as about 15 percent
of people with dementia do, and when you need help eating and going to
the bathroom.
“Even those who stay free of the virus have suffered
disproportionately from the disruptions of pandemic life. Dementia
responds well to routine: rigid, time-blocked schedules and familiar
faces. But the pandemic has shown us, and warned us, how quickly the
fragile channels of dementia care — the muddled blend of formal and
informal networks that sustain those routines — can collapse under
strain…”
Read more at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/opinion/covid-dementia.html
Message: 2
House passes aid-in-dying legislation (NM)
Albuquerque Journal
By Dan McKay, Feb. 19, 2021
“The tearful debate culminated in 39-27 vote to endorse a proposal
that would allow terminally ill patients to seek a doctor’s help to
end their life — the first time a medical aid-in-dying bill has
passed a chamber of the state Legislature. The legislation, House Bill
47, now heads to the Senate…”
Note – Answer three questions for free access to full article at:
https://www.abqjournal.com/2361523/house-passes-aid-in-dying-legislation.html
Message: 3
House rejects assisted suicide bill (ND)
Prairie Public News
By Dave Thompson, Feb. 17, 2021
The North Dakota House rejected a MAiD bill by a vote of 85-9.
The bill’s sponsor observed:
“This bill is a basic idea, that terminally ill people, not
government, politicians or their ideology, or religious leaders and
their dogma should make end-of-life decisions, and determine how much
pain and suffering they should have to endure.”
Read more at:
https://news.prairiepublic.org/post/house-rejects-assisted-suicide-bill
Message: 4
David Leven rebuts the common arguments against medical aid in dying.
“The term ‘assisted suicide’ is rejected by the American Public Health
Association, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine,
American Medical Women’s Association, the American Psychological
Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, among others, and
in the state laws which permit medical aid in dying. And, in 2017 the
American Association of Suicidology issued this statement: ‘Suicide is
not the same as physician aid in dying…’
“…the concerns about ‘coercion, trickery, or worse” would be
understandable if there were not over 50 years of experience with
medical aid in dying in the nine states which authorize the practice,
without any substantiated court or administrative cases proving
coercion or any other abuses. While an occasional abuse is possible,
that is not a sufficient reason to prevent dying patients from
accessing medical aid in dying. Medical aid in dying has been
consistently proven to be a safe, ethical and effective medical
practice that benefits patients by providing a peaceful death, and
causes no harm to anyone. It is time for the Connecticut legislature
to act.”
Read the full op-ed at:
https://ctmirror.org/category/ct-viewpoints/aid-in-dying-is-not-suicide/
Message: 5
Petitclerc recounts her own experience with disability in final MAID bill debate
The Canadian Press (on yahoo.com), Feb. 16, 2021
“Sen. Chantal Petitclerc has recounted her own experience with a
disability in a bid to counter criticism of a bill to expand access to
medical assistance in dying…
“Petitclerc, a former Paralympian who is sponsoring the bill in the
Senate, says she knows what it’s like to be in a situation of ‘extreme
vulnerability.’
“If that pain were enduring and irremediable, she says she would seek
a medically assisted death, which the bill would allow her do.”
Read more at:
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/petitclerc-recounts-her-own-experience-222559757.html
Message: 6
Dignity In Dying Scotland tweets powerful video by Josh Aaron-Mennie:
“No one should have to go through what my grandmother did”
“It was quite sad to see such a proud and warm woman die in the way
she did. She’d always wake up and say, ‘Oh, torture, torture. They
wouldn’t let an animal suffer like this, please can’t you just let me
pass on.’ Finally, starving to death, she didn’t want to die of
thirst or hunger. But those thirteen days when she was drowning in
her own fluids … No person should ever have to live through what my
grandmother lived through.”
Watch the one-minute video posted to Twitter on Feb 9 at:
https://twitter.com/DignitySAfrica/status/1359244775648559110
Message: 7
New York Rejects Cause of Action for Wrongful Prolongation of Life
Medical Futility Blog
By Thaddeus Pope, Feb. 20, 2021
“It is time for New York to align its tort law with California,
Georgia, Montana, and other states that recognize that ‘wrongful
prolongation of life’ harms patients and is a compensable injury.”
