Patient Choices Vermont (PCV) appears to be trying to drum up users for Act 39. It seems that some 108 requests for a lethal prescription (87 of which were used) since 2013 aren’t enough, and they hope that S.74 will help make it easier to end the lives of more people using doctor-prescribed lethal drugs. Briefly, the changes proposed under S.74 are as … [Read more...] about S.74: A step down the slippery slope
Choice Becomes "Duty" to Die
Satirical short film on assisted suicide hits home
"The Mother Situation" https://goo.gl/7TFAuW is a darkly satirical, award winning, 7-minute film which illustrates the potential for abuse when assisted suicide is made legal. There is no question it could happen here in Vermont, where there are no requirements for oversight when prescriptions for suicide drugs are requested and filled. When a person dies after having … [Read more...] about Satirical short film on assisted suicide hits home
Pressure to Die: A Case Study of Abuse of Act 39
Eighteen months ago True Dignity ran the following story about an elderly Medicaid patient who felt pressured to request assisted suicide by caregivers in the facility where she was admitted for recovery from a fall. The patient did not have a terminal diagnosis. Beth Neill, the patient's daughter, who reported the abuse to True Dignity, has since passed away. We are running … [Read more...] about Pressure to Die: A Case Study of Abuse of Act 39
A New Method of Doctor-Assisted Suicide: Evisceration of the Living for Organ Donation
Health April 2015 As They Lay Dying Two doctors say it’s far too hard for terminal patients to donate their organs. Joshua Mezrich and Joseph Scalea Mar 16 2015, 8:25 PM ET http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/as-they-lay-dying/386273/ Thanks to Alex Schadenberg and Wesley Smith for pointing out an article in the Atlantic advocating a "right" for … [Read more...] about A New Method of Doctor-Assisted Suicide: Evisceration of the Living for Organ Donation
Vermont’s New Eugenics Movement
Many Vermonters would be stunned to learn that some eighty years ago, our legislature passed a law enabling the sterilization of Vermonters who had been determined to be “undesirables,” people from targeted groups that included Abenakis and French Canadian immigrants. The 1931 sterilization law was designed to reduce the number of people seen as placing demands on public … [Read more...] about Vermont’s New Eugenics Movement