… and suicide. On watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” last night, I was struck by many things. But maybe most of all by the accuracy of its portrayal of the suicide. As Paul McHugh says in The Mind Has Mountains … “Most suicidally depressed patients are not rational individuals who have weighed the balance sheet […]
it’s a wonderful life … Read More »
… read about the witness of Canadian teenagers before the “Dying with Dignity” commission and learn why Canadian journalist Laureen Pindera said “these people speak not simply about what treatment to give their patients, but about how they accompany them in their journey of suffering. They speak about how to love them.”
the knowledge of faith becomes the knowledge of reality … Read More »
“Those of us who have spent time in the company of people with mortal illness have learned from them that we are always challenged to know more and to help more effectively but, above all, to listen. Sometimes there will be no answers to give to those in apparently desperate situations, and we find ourselves
face to face … with our own need Read More »
Victoria Kennedy in opposition to Massachusetts’s proposed assisted suicide law … also Ira Byock … Ezekiel Emmanuel … Ben Mattlin.
cruel, lonely and sad … Read More »
The Supreme Court of British Columbia recently declared unconstitutional criminal code provisions prohibiting assisting in a suicide … effectively legalizing assisted suicide. The National Post story, BioEdge comments, from Margaret Somerville’s analysis … “People who support legalizing assisted suicide/euthanasia simply assume that individual autonomy is the value that takes priority. But research shows that the
british columbia effectively legalizes assisted suicide … Read More »
… the BMJ joins the AAHPM in adopting a position of “studied neutrality” in their paths toward Physician Assisted Suicide. From a letter to AAHPM from the Supportive Care Coalition at the time (2007) of the AAHPM’s change in position … “[We] oppose all efforts to legalize physician assisted suicide. Precisely because you are a
studied neutrality … Read More »
Oregon’s public health division has released statistics on deaths under its physician-assisted suicide (PAS) legislation. It shows a steady increase in the number of lethal prescriptions and in the number of deaths. In 1998, the first year after PAS was legalized, there were 24 prescriptions and 16 deaths. In 2011, there were 114 prescriptions and
Oregon assisted suicide update … Read More »
… in the setting of physician assisted suicide and euthanasia … “The secular version of a “good death” is a terribly lonely one. Placing the emphasis on unbearable suffering and the patient’s autonomy, or right to “die with dignity,” is supremely ironic because the patient is never truly autonomous as he asks the community, in
the irony of patient autonomy … Read More »
“ … what one suffers is beyond one’s control – suffering is what one undergoes, what happens, what one endures. One cannot control true suffering. Suffering is what remains when one’s control runs out. And the very fact that it is beyond one’s control means that it helps to define one’s limits. To be a
suffering is what remains when control runs out … Read More »
… the Parliamentary Council of Europe has affirmed that “Euthanasia, in the sense of the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit, must always be prohibited.” Bioedge discusses
protecting human dignity … Read More »
