Euthanasia in the U.S. and the Death With Dignity Act
Mom's Fight to Let 12-Year-Old Daughter Die in Peace in London, England
October 28, 2014Yahoo! Parenting - No parent can stand to see his or her child suffer, and Charlotte Fitzmaurice and David Wise of London were no exception. It’s what led the mom and dad to wage a legal battle to allow their severely disabled 12-year-old daughter, Nancy Fitzmaurice, to die. They won their landmark case in August, with a High Court judge granting Nancy’s parents the right to end her short life. And this week, they are speaking out about their heartbreaking experience.
“My daughter is no longer my daughter, she is now merely just a shell,” Charlotte wrote in her statement when first making the request of the court. “The light from her eyes is now gone and is replaced with fear and a longing to be at peace. Today I am appealing to you for Nancy as I truly believe she has endured enough. For me to say that breaks my heart. But I have to say it.”
Nancy’s quality of life suffered
from the start: She was born blind, with hydrocephalus, meningitis, and
septicaemia, and was never able to walk, talk, eat, or drink on her own.
But things worsened after a routine surgery left the young girl
screaming in excruciating pain, as well as requiring 24-hour hospital
care that included receiving tube feedings and medications. After the
judge’s approval, physicians at Great Ormond Street Hospital were able
to remove Nancy’s fluids and feeding tube; she died 14 days later
surrounded by family.
The court ruling was reportedly the first time a child breathing on her own, not on life support, and not suffering a terminal illness, has been allowed to die in the U.K. Global precedents regarding euthanasia vary wildly. In the U.S., only five states — Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, and New Mexico — have passed “death with dignity” legislation, allowing terminally ill adults (18 and over only) to end their lives through the voluntary consumption of lethal medications. Earlier this month, 29-year-old Brittany Maynard, who suffers from a rare brain tumor, spoke to People magazine about her decision to move from California to Oregon with her husband in order to legally end her own life.
In the U.K., the House of Lords recently debated
a controversial bill that would allow assisted dying; opinions were
split. In 2002, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize
euthanasia, though it came with a strict set of rules and applied only
to adults. Belgium legalized assisted suicide that same year and then,
in early 2014, became the first country to allow euthanasia for children, which caused heated, round-the-world discussions.
“Critics of the Belgian law argue that children do not understand what they are asking for in requesting euthanasia — namely, death — and that older children who do understand death may not be able to choose it, authentically, for themselves. Research done by pediatric oncologists, nurses and palliative care specialists undermines this complaint,” wrote Susan Dwyer, a professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland, in an opinion piece in Al Jazeera America.
“More tellingly, perhaps, research also shows that gravely ill children who have lived for years with serious illness, who have undergone painful and invasive procedures and who have spent lots of time in hospitals with other such children have a pretty good understanding of their mortality and of what they want regarding further treatment,” Dwyer continued. “At the very least, then, we ought to recognize that terminally ill children might meaningfully refuse treatment that would only prolong their pain and suffering.”
In this country, pediatric palliative care guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics
do not condone physician assisted death. And, according to Raymond
Barfield, associate professor of pediatrics and Christian philosophy and
director of the Pediatric Quality of Life program at Duke University:
“The pediatric palliative care community seems to have a consensus that generally agrees with this, meaning that physicians cannot have the death of a child as a primary motivating goal for action. That said, there seems to be broad consensus that actions intended to relieve pain and suffering in a child are morally acceptable (and many would say laudable) even if the length of a child’s life is shortened as a consequence.”Such pain interventions, Barfield tells Yahoo Parenting, may include high doses of opioids, or the removal of high-technology treatments such as ventilators or feeding tubes, which may shorten life.
“As technology advances, interventions that require enormous technological sophistication can tend to become ‘the new normal,’ and this causes huge problems in situations like this where our technology mostly prolongs agony rather than being directed toward human flourishing,” he says.
For that reason, Barfield adds,
he can see a case like Nancy’s eventually playing out here in the U.S.
He also notes that many terminally-ill children are indeed capable of
taking part in such wrenching discussions.
“Many children who are at the end of life have developed keen insight into their disease and the experience of pain without hope for cure,” he says. “They have also very often seen friends with similar diseases die (this happens all the time in my field of pediatric oncology). Given this, the child should be listened to if they have an opinion about further interventions at the end of life, or about withdrawal of interventions at that point.”
In the latest case, though,
12-year-old Nancy was not able to weigh in — which left her parents in a
state of agonizing decision-making.
“I miss my beautiful girl every day, and although I know it was the right thing to do, I will never forgive myself,” Charlotte said this week. “It shouldn’t have to be a mother’s decision to end a child’s life. I believe hospitals and parents should be able to decide without mothers or fathers going to court. I want parents to know it’s OK to want your child to be at peace, it doesn’t mean you love them any less. Watching my daughter suffer for days while they cut off her fluids was unbearable. She went in pain. It will stay with me forever. Although I will live with the guilt forever, I know I have done everything I can for her and she is at peace.”
NWO Order Plans Exposed by Insider in 1969: Euthanasia and the Demise Pill (Excerpt)
By Dr. Lawrence Dunegan, Pittsburgh pediatrician on his recollections of the lecture (recorded on tape in 1988)On March 20, 1969, Dr. Richard Day, an insider to the NWO plans, gave a lecture to a gathering of pediatricians at a meeting of the Pittsburgh Pediatric Society. In his introductory remarks, he commented that he would not have been able to say what he was about to say, even a few years earlier, but he was free to speak at this time because, 'Everything is in place and nobody can stop us now.'
The new system would be brought in — if not by peaceful co-operation with everybody willingly yielding national sovereignty, then by bringing the nation to the brink of nuclear war. Everybody would be so fearful — as hysteria is created by the possibility of nuclear war — that there would be a strong public outcry to negotiate a public peace; and people would willingly give up national sovereignty in order to achieve peace, and thereby this would bring in the 'New International Political System.' If there were too many people in the right places who resisted this, there might be a need to use one or two or possibly more nuclear weapons. By the time one or two of those went off then everybody, even the most reluctant, would yield. This negotiated peace would be very convincing, as in a framework or in a context that the whole thing was rehearsed but nobody would know it. People hearing about it would be convinced that it was a genuine negotiation between hostile enemies who finally had come to the realisation that peace was better than war.
His purpose in telling our group about the changes which were to be brought about [especially regarding medicine and their planned control over it, including eliminating solo practitioners and limiting access to affordable health care] was to make it easier for us to adapt to these changes. Indeed, as he quite accurately said, "There would be changes that would be very surprising, and in some ways difficult for people to accept," and he hoped that we, as sort of his friends, would make the adaptation more easily if we knew somewhat beforehand what to expect.
Change was to be brought about, change was to be anticipated and expected, and accepted, no questions asked. A comment he made from time to time during the presentation was, "People are too trusting; people don't ask the right questions." Sometimes, being too trusting was equated with being too dumb. But sometimes when he would say that "people don't ask the right questions," it was almost with a sense of regret as if he were uneasy with what he was part of, and wished that people would challenge it and maybe not be so trusting.
EUTHANASIA AND THE 'DEMISE PILL'
Everybody has a right to live only so long. The old are no longer useful. They become a burden. You should be ready to accept death. Most people are. An arbitrary age limit could be established. After all, you have a right to only so many steak dinners, so many orgasms, and so many good pleasures in life. After you have had enough of them and you're no longer productive, working and contributing, then you should be ready to step aside for the next generation.
He mentioned several of the things that would help people realise that they had lived long enough. I don't remember them all but here are a few. The use of very pale printing ink on forms that people are necessary to fill out — older people wouldn't be able to read the pale ink as easily and would need to go to younger people for help. Automobile traffic patterns — there would be more high-speed traffic lanes that older people with their slower reflexes would have trouble dealing with and thus, lose some of their independence.
LIMITING ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE MEDICAL
A big item that was elaborated on at some length was that the cost of medical care would be made burdensomely high. Medical care would be connected very closely with one's work but also would be made very, very high in cost so that it would simply be unavailable to people beyond a certain time. Unless they had a remarkably rich, supporting family, they would just have to do without care. And the idea was that if everybody says, "Enough! — what a burden it is on the young to try to maintain the old people," then the young would become agreeable to helping Mom and Dad along the way, provided this was done humanely and with dignity. Then the example was — there could be a nice, farewell party, a real celebration. Mom and Dad had done a good job. Then after the party's over they take the 'demise pill'.
PLANNING THE CONTROL OVER MEDICINE
The next topic is Medicine. There would be profound changes in the practice of medicine. Overall, medicine would be much more tightly controlled. The observation that was made in 1969 that,
"It is now abundantly evident that Congress is not going to go along with national health insurance. But it's not necessary — we have other ways to control health care".These would come about more gradually, but all health care delivery would come under tight control. Medical care would be closely connected to work. If you don't work or can't work, you won't have access to medical care. The days of hospitals giving away free care would gradually wind down, to where it was virtually non-existent. Costs would be forced up so that people won't be able to afford to go without insurance.
People pay for it, you're entitled to it. It was only subsequently that I began to realise the extent to which you would not be paying for it. Your medical care would be paid for by others. Therefore, you would gratefully accept, on bended knee, what was offered to you as a privilege. Your role being responsible for your own care would be diminished. As an aside here, this is not something that was developed at that time; I didn't understand it at the time that it was an aside.
Here's the way this works: everybody has made dependent on insurance, and if you don't have insurance then you pay directly; the cost of your care is enormous. The insurance company, however, paying for your care, does not pay that same amount. If you are charged, say, $600 for the use of an operating room, the insurance company does not pay $600; they only pay $300 or $400. That differential in billing has the desired effect: It enables the insurance company to pay for that which you could never pay for. They get a discount that's unavailable to you. When you see your bill you're grateful that the insurance company could do that. And in this way you are dependent and virtually required to have insurance. The whole billing is fraudulent.
Access to hospitals would be tightly controlled and identification would be needed to get into the building. The security in and around hospitals would be established and gradually increased so that nobody without identification could get in or move around inside the building. Theft of hospital equipment, things like typewriters and microscopes and so forth, would be 'allowed' and reports of it would be exaggerated so that this would be the excuse needed to establish the need for strict security — until people got used to it.
Anybody moving about the hospital would be required to wear an identification badge with a photograph and telling why he was there — employee or lab technician or visitor or whatever. This is to be brought in gradually, getting everybody used to the idea of identifying themselves — until it was just accepted.
This need for ID to move about would start in small ways: hospitals, some businesses, but gradually expand to include everybody in all places!
It was observed that hospitals can be used to confine people and for the treatment of criminals. This did not mean, necessarily, medical treatment. At that time I did not know the term 'Psycho-Prison' — they are in the Soviet Union. But, without trying to recall all the details, basically he was describing the use of hospitals both for treating the sick and for confinement of criminals for reasons other than the medical well-being of the criminal. The definition of criminal was not given.
[...]
SCHOOLS AS THE HUB OF THE COMMUNITY
Another angle was that the schools would become more important in peoples' overall life. Kids, in addition to their academics, would have to get into school activities unless they wanted to feel completely out of it. But spontaneous activities among kids — the thing that came to my mind when I heard this was sand lot football and sand lot baseball teams that we worked up as kids growing up. I said the kids wanting any activities outside of school would be almost forced to get them through the school. There would be few opportunities outside.
Now the pressures of the accelerated academic program, the accelerated demands where kids would feel they had to be part of something — one or another athletic club or some school activity — these pressures he recognized would cause some students to burn out. He said.
"The smartest ones will learn how to cope with pressures and to survive. There will be some help available to students in handling stress, but the unfit won't be able to make it. They will then move on to other things."In this connection, and later on with drug abuse and alcohol abuse, he indicated that psychiatric services to help would be increased dramatically. In all the pushing for achievement, it was recognized that many people would need help, and the people worth keeping around would be able to accept and benefit from that help, and still be super achievers. Those who could not would fall by the wayside and, therefore, were sort of dispensable — 'expendable' I guess is the word I want.
Education would be lifelong and adults would be going to school. There'll always be new information that adults must have to keep up. When you can't keep up anymore, you're too old. This was another way of letting older people know that the time had come for them to move on and take the demise pill. If you got too tired to keep up with your education, or you got too old to learn new information, then this was a signal — you begin to prepare to get ready to step aside.
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