Recent News

Daily Mail 31 December 2017
Family First Comment: We can live without euthanasia
www.protect.org.nz

A former Marine who was a vocal opponent of physician-assisted suicide and suffered from brain cancer died on Saturday.

J.J. Hanson died at the age of 36, according to the New York Catholic Conference, who worked closely with him fighting the Death with Dignity bill that seeks to legalize physician-assisted suicide in New York.

‘JJ lived his motto: ‘Every day is a gift, and you can’t ever let that go,’ said Kathleen Gallagher, director of pro-life activities for the Catholic Conference, to New York Daily News.

‘He and (his wife) Kristen are a true testament to living their faith through adversity, and JJ’s death is a loving example of an authentic ‘death with dignity.’

Hanson was once a former aide to both Governor Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson.

He became the president of the Patient Rights Action Fund, a group that despised assisted suicide, in 2015.

Hanson shared with the publication in 2015 that he once supported the bill but then in his final years, he dedicated a lot of his efforts fighting physician-assisted-suicide.
READ MORE:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5224165/J-J-Hanson-opponent-assisted-suicides-dies-age-36.html


 

World News Group 28 May 2016
Family First Comment: “When you were the sickest in your life, how well were you thinking at that time? Not good, right? Now multiply that exponentially. … Put [the drugs] in a glass of beer, done. In that moment of weakness and difficulty and stress, done. … I don’t think I would have done that, but there’s many people who could’ve or would’ve in that situation.” J J Hanson

J.J. Hanson, 35, is a tall former Marine from New York’s Hudson Valley who did a tour in Iraq. He speaks so quickly and sharply that someone meeting him for the first time wouldn’t know that two years ago he couldn’t talk, walk, read, or write.

The loss of Hanson’s basic functions came shortly after a shattering diagnosis for a man with a wife and a young son. In 2014, out of the blue, Hanson had a seizure while he was at work. Doctors discovered he had stage 4 glioblastoma (GBM), one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer—and the same kind of cancer that assisted suicide advocate Brittany Maynard had when she ended her life in late 2014.

Three different doctors told Hanson his case was terminal and said he had four months to live. But he was determined to do aggressive treatment anyway. Doctors operated on his brain, which led to nine seizures in a day and his “cognitive loss” of basic functions. He joined a clinical trial. In order to recover from his cognitive loss, Hanson read children’s books, slowly working back up to adult reading.

Now he has survived two years—walking, talking, reading, and writing—and he is in what he calls remission, although he calmly admits that with GBM, there is really no such thing as remission.

Hanson, who worked in New York state government before turning to the private sector, had not given much thought to the issue of assisted suicide until he had a terminal disease. Now he is leading efforts against physician-assisted suicide legislation around the country with the organization Patients’ Rights Action Fund. New York is currently considering two bills to legalize the practice. California, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington have already made it legal.

AT MONTH FIVE OF HIS TREATMENT, the normally irrepressible Hanson became depressed. He says he lay in his bed and asked himself if he should give up, if it would make things easier for everyone if he were gone. He decided to continue—but then he imagined what others in his position might do.

Under the current New York proposals, a patient like Hanson could go to a doctor when he received a terminal prognosis and, if he were in a good mental state, receive a prescription for the lethal drugs. Then the patient could go home and put the drugs on his nightstand for whenever he might reach that desperate moment.

“When you were the sickest in your life, how well were you thinking at that time?” Hanson asked. “Not good, right? Now multiply that exponentially. … Put [the drugs] in a glass of beer, done. In that moment of weakness and difficulty and stress, done. … I don’t think I would have done that, but there’s many people who could’ve or would’ve in that situation.”

At the state Capitol Hanson walked the halls with a black binder under his arm, filled with articles and notes about assisted suicide data. He needs the binder to remember things after the surgery nicked certain circuits in his brain. Before cancer, he says, he could remember the specific details of almost every person he met. Now, sometimes he forgets the names of family members, though he is still quick to recall most information.

Speaking helps him speak, so he speaks with legislators. He emphasizes how legalizing assisted suicide will change social norms, legitimizing the general practice of suicide. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a 24 percent increase in suicides over the last 15 years, after 15 years of declines. The rate of increase is also higher in recent years.

Hanson also emphasizes to legislators how assisted suicide will shrink an already small pool of terminal patients willing to participate in clinical trials. As it is, glioblastoma patients rarely live long enough to participate in a trial, so the pool of those who can participate in research that might help future patients is tiny. This session at least, it looks as if Hanson’s arguments are helping to keep the legislation from passing.

“I think we will be fighting this bill for 20 years,” said Hanson. “I don’t think it’s going away.”
READ MORE: https://world.wng.org/2016/05/unequal_protection

Keep up with family issues in NZ.
Receive our weekly emails direct to your Inbox.

In 1994, Jeannette Hall, a resident of King City, Ore., voted in favor of Ballot Measure 16, which for the first time in the United States, would allow terminally ill patients to end their own lives through physician-assisted suicide.

Six years later, she would be diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer. Doctors gave Hall, who was 55 at the time, two options: She could get radiation and chemotherapy and attempt to fight the cancer, or she could take a lethal dose of barbiturates to end her life. “I was calling it over,” she said. “I wasn’t going to do chemo.

When I heard what might take place in radiation … I wasn’t going to do it. I looked for the easy way out.” Without treatment, Hall was given six months to a year to live, and therefore qualified for physician-assisted suicide through Oregon’s Death With Dignity law. Dr. Kenneth Stevens, one of Hall’s two cancer doctors, works at the Oregon Health and Sciences University specializing in radiation medicine. He has long opposed physician-assisted suicide.

For weeks, Stevens resisted giving Hall the lethal dose of drugs, hoping he could convince her to change her mind. After multiple phone calls and doctors’ appointments, Stevens said something that changed her mind.

Stevens learned that Hall had a son, Scott Walden, who was living in Astoria, Ore., training to be a state trooper. At the time, Walden didn’t even know his mom had cancer—let alone that she was asking her doctor to prescribe her a lethal dose of life-ending drugs. Stevens, in a last ditch effort to convince Hall against death, asked her: “Wouldn’t you like to see him graduate? Wouldn’t you like to see him get married?” “That’s what kept me back. That one sentence,” Hall said. “If you hadn’t said that, I wouldn’t be here.”

Fifteen years later, Hall is now cured of cancer and celebrating her 70th birthday with her son—who has since graduated from the police academy but has yet to get married.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. It was the late Ngati Porou kaumātua Amster Reedy who stated, “We bring people into this world. We care for them right from the time they are conceived, born, bred, in health, sickness, and death. The rituals still exist for every part of their lives.” Those rituals still will exist and we need to have faith in our ancestors. Euthanasia is foreign to Māori and has no place in our society.

In all my life, raised as a Ngāi Tahu Māori, I have never heard or known of a Māori concept that validates assisting dying. Witnessing the death of a whānau member is as intimate as it gets. To watch a painful death can be shattering; the indignities we may have to see our loved one suffer—unable to undertake the most basic human functions without support, watching their agony, feeling their helplessness and, often, their feeling that they are being a burden on their whānau—yet this is only part of the process. There is another side to death; that is the whānau side.

But death has never been a final ending for our people. It merely signifies the beginning of the journey to Te Rerenga Wairua and then onto the ancestral home of Hawaiki nui, Hawaiki roa, Hawaiki pāmamao. It is a life in the afterlife, where we gather once more with our tīpuna and our departed whānau, members, and friends.

The process of dying, for us, is a process of whānau. We hear of terminal illness inside the whānau. We know the time has come to mobilise and gather. We give the immediate whānau our physical, spiritual, and, if needed, financial support. The process of death is not just about a loved one, it’s also about our whānau. This process is an essential component of binding our whānau together. The act of caring for a whānau member is a process of learning, of grieving, of laughing, of despairing, of reminiscing, and of coming to that moment of peace when we can finally let them go. This process of death is as much for the living as it is for the dead. Many Māori see this as an essential expression of taha wairua [the spiritual side], or being a part of something that is greater than ourselves. The final act of dying is the point where the ancestors come to take that loved one home. It is a moment of extraordinary sadness but also joy, as we become aware that an ancestor is now in the room with us to accompany the loved one on their final journey.

In the debates throughout the country that have preceded this tonight, Māori voices have been few and far between because some Māori choose not to discuss such things and fear that their fundamental beliefs are treated as native superstition. To me, assisted dying is to fast-forward a process that ultimately denies our loved one the chance to be taken to their ancestral home and is, instead, left in limbo, on their own, in a transitional afterlife until their time finally arrives.

The real challenge is to ensure all whānau across Aotearoa have access to the full range of palliative care available to ensure that we can ease the passing of our loved ones and the burden of care that falls upon whānau, without resorting to artificially ending their life. Then, we will truly, here, have succeeded. On that basis, I cannot support this bill.

Āpiti hōno, tātai hōno, rātou ki te hunga mate, ki te hunga mate ki a rātou; āpiti hōno, tātai hōno, tātou ki te hunga ora, ki te hunga ora ki a tātou.
[The lines are joined and linked, they to the dead and the dead to them; the lines are joined and linked, we to the living and the living to us.] Let the dead be the dead and the living be the living. Kia ora tātou.

Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in American Principles and Public Policy. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, healthcare and education, and has expertise in bioethics and natural law theory.

I believe this is a sad day for the House. We are here talking about the State sanctioning killing of New Zealanders. This bill suggests that suicide is a solution under certain circumstances, and I stand today to reject this.

I spent two and a bit years chairing the Health Committee as over 21,000 Kiwis from across the spectrum spoke to us, and 80 percent, who had well considered it, said no. I’ve studied philosophy and human rights, I’ve been at hospital beds and hospices, I’ve seen more death and suffering than sometimes I care to remember, and, fundamentally, I do not believe doctors should be killing their patients.

Members of the House, this bill is about killing in two ways. The first is called euthanasia. It’s where the doctor takes an injection, usually something like phenobarbital, and injects it into you—only after they’ve sedated you, of course; couldn’t have the inconvenience of twitching. The other is physician-assisted suicide, where, again, they give you a massive dose of drugs. You take that yourself, at your own choosing—and hope that the kids don’t find it in the medical cabinet at the time.

This bill combines both of those. That’s almost unheard of in any other jurisdiction around the world. This bill before us tonight is the worst example of euthanasia legislation in the world. I say that as someone who has looked at every piece of legislation.

Where it starts, really badly, is clause 4. We hear it a lot: it’s all about terminal illness, up to six months. But the doctors, the medical people, will tell you that six months is just an indication; it’s not a guarantee. And the doctors will tell you too that they misdiagnose all the time.

They also talk in this bill about irremediable, grievous conditions. That’s incredibly broad, undefined. What is “irremediable”? What is “grievous”? Basically, it includes everyone, including those with disabilities.

But the bill also, rather insidiously, talks about suffering that a person deems intolerable—what you deem intolerable. Sorry, Mr Speaker—what members may deem intolerable. This is a clear indication that it is the courts who will be making decisions and choices, not this Parliament and certainly not the person.

In the debate in this space, I’ve often said, it’s between choice and public safety. Let’s be very clear: the current laws as they stand mean that no one will die against their will, but this proposed law that we consider tonight will make involuntary deaths possible. We know in this House we do not make things perfect, because changing this law will allow some to assist the suicide—well, sorry. People who choose to assist in suicide will put others at risk.

We know that this law applies to everyone. It does not apply simply to the rational and articulate; it applies to the elderly, the disabled, the sick, the vulnerable—all of us. Not everyone is fortunate enough to live with a loving, caring family. Not everyone has a doctor fully in tune with them and their needs. This law will apply to the depressed, the lonely, those who feel a burden, the disabled, the fearful. I should point out that these are the same feelings of a 16-year-old who is keen to suicide, the 40-year-old who has lost their farm, or the 80-year-old on the deathbed.

I repeat again, as I did a few months back, that you cannot stand in this House and decry the suicide of one group of people—say, the youth—and then encourage the suicide of another group—say, the sick. They are the same feelings that are there. And I don’t say it alone. It’s very easy for the media and others to attack, but, actually, this is the opinion of the major medical groups, the psychologists, and the youth workers. I add their voice tonight.

There’s a lot of talk about choice. Let me say one thing about choice: the patient in this space never makes the choice. If they did, there wouldn’t need to be doctors and psychologists and boards and panels. The doctors make the choices. The family makes the choices.

If you think I’m exaggerating, go and look up an example in the Netherlands recently. A woman with dementia who, yes, years ago, had said that she would like to die by assisted suicide, was held down after being sedated by her doctor and family—they put drugs in her tea. They sedated her, held her down as she screamed and yelled, and then they killed her. The doctor was able to report it, and they just said, “Oh, well, you acted in good faith, but she’s dead now.” So much for the choice and autonomy that she exercised.

And I’d point out too that if it’s about choice and autonomy, we all have it. If it’s a human right, all humans have it. There is a slippery slope, and one only needs to turn to Canada, which has already been mentioned, which is already pushing the boundaries.

There are no safeguards; there are just lots of criteria. Being 18 is not a safeguard. All the reporting comes after the fact. If you get it wrong, the person’s still dead.
Doctors don’t want to be part of this. The few that do will make a business of it, and there will be doctor-shopping. The conscience rights in this bill are a nonsense. If you oppose, the doctor must hand that person over to someone who will.

It’s a very, very poor bill, and, fundamentally—thousands of health professionals and others have argued in the recent public debate—this is an issue where the public safety will be put at risk. So I ask this House how many involuntary deaths and errors are we willing to accept through this law: one, five, 10—

I rise to oppose this bill, principally for the reason that this House has defeated such legislation twice in the last two decades, and it is this: it removes a principle at the core of the law written to protect everybody, and particularly the most vulnerable, and that is the blanket prohibition against taking the life of another. That is at the core of our criminal law that protects everybody, particularly the most vulnerable. In removing that prohibition, which has been in our law for as long as this country has existed, this Parliament is taking a huge step.

I appeal to our members tonight. I’m sure we’ve all had the experience—I know I have—or know about the experience, of witnessing the suffering, the fear, and the anxiety of a dying person and those around them, and, sometimes, a difficult death. Alongside that personal connection, we have to weigh up, in our role as lawmakers—not just as parents or children or siblings or friends of those who we’ve seen die, but as lawmakers. Our role is not principally to alleviate suffering; our role is to ensure that our society has a set of laws that protect those who most need protection.

Did you know that in our law, section 179 of the Crimes Act, it is a crime to incite the suicide of another person, even if they don’t actually commit it—even if they don’t actually commit it? Why is that there? Because we don’t want people encouraging a depressed disabled young person to think that their life isn’t worth anything. As lawmakers, the reason there is a blanket prohibition is because you are not always the best judge of the value of your life, and the price that our community pays for enabling a doctor to take your life, free of criminal scrutiny, is that many other people are more vulnerable. Their lives will become more fearful, and they’ll become more subject to the pressure to make the judgment themselves that their life has less value and therefore they should make the decision. It is a slippery slope. That is why this bill, with its cold, technical, bureaucratic process of death, tries to look like it’s safe.

We have to weigh it up, and every Parliament up to now has said that the balance between what is enabled for an individual and the cost of that enablement to the rest of society is too big a risk to take. I put the case that as lawmakers that is the question that we need to weigh up: is the gain in personal autonomy—because the research shows people embark on euthanasia principally for autonomy reasons; they may not be suffering that much—worth the broader cost to our community? I don’t think anyone can, in their heart of hearts, believe that this bill will make life safer for the disabled or that it will make our community more warmly embracing of our ageing population. Who pretends that? It won’t—it won’t.

That is why I will oppose it and invite others to. You know, we’re not creating medical procedure here; we’re creating an exemption from the criminal law against killing for a specified group—that is, doctors, who do not want to carry this burden—under some conditions that amount to box-ticking. So I ask the Parliament to consider that very carefully—the removal of the blanket prohibition against taking a life, which should be subject to scrutiny and accountability.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity. I want to, firstly, acknowledge that there are people in the stands here who have taken great interest in this issue. I also want to acknowledge that there are people listening to this debate, and I just want to acknowledge that this is an issue where many people have a variety of views. Within the Pacific communities themselves, I am aware that there are those who do not support this cause, there are those who support it, and there are those who have no view on it because of the fact that when we talk about death we also must talk about birth, or the creation of life. From a Pacific perspective—or from my perspective—can I say that when we talk of death, there is a tendency for many of us to acknowledge that death is only a pathway to another life. But I want to lay out for this House, and particularly for those members who have joined this House this year, some of the background that I think is important for people when making their decision.

There have been two first reading debates in Parliament on similar bills on this particular issue. Both were unsuccessful. In 1995, members voted 61 to 29 against Michael Laws’ Death with Dignity Bill. In 2003, members voted 60 to 58 against Peter Brown’s Death with Dignity Bill. On 23 June 2015, this Parliament received a petition by the Hon Maryan Street and 8,974 others, requesting that the House of Representatives investigate fully public attitudes towards the introduction of legislation that would permit medically assisted dying in the event of a terminal illness or an irreversible condition that makes life unbearable. The Health Committee, which received this petition, formulated its own terms of reference in considering that petition. Since the petition asked for a change to existing law, the committee’s terms of reference were wide and comprehensive. To fully understand the public’s attitudes, it set out to consider all the various aspects of the issue, including the social, legal, medical, cultural, financial, ethical, and philosophical implications.

The Health Committee received more than 21,000 written submissions from individuals and organisations. They heard from the petitioner of the petition on 14 October 2015. They agreed to hear from more than 1,800 submitters who had initially indicated that they wished to appear before that Health Committee. Submitters were invited to meetings held in Wellington, Christchurch, and Auckland. Those who were unable to make these venues were heard by teleconference. They began hearing from submitters on 24 August 2016 and concluded oral hearings on 5 April 2017. The committee spent over 108 hours of hearing. In the meantime, Mr Seymour’s bill entered the ballot in October 2015 and was drawn on 8 June this year.

I considered voting in support of this bill to go to the select committee, but based on that information, which is available for all to see, I believe that I’m able to make a decision not to support this bill going into the select committee.

My personal experiences are probably irrelevant for what Mr Seymour is attempting to do, but from a Samoan perspective—who have grown up to value life and that there is a purpose to life and that if people do not experience the pain, they’re also unable to enjoy what joy is. If people do not accept the reality of death, they cannot then see the purpose of life. And for those reasons, I believe that there’s been sufficient consultation on this matter.

I want to finally say that our laws follow values. Our laws traditionally follow traditional values. I believe that one of the most fundamental values that we need to uphold is the value that life is sacred, and when we’re dealing with suicides, this is one issue that doesn’t balance out our desire to keep life valued.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There’s been a lot of talk tonight about choice, with this bill, and how important it is for people to have choice. But I ask you to pause and consider this all very carefully indeed. To give choice to some is to take away the choice of thousands of others, and this is the kind of situation that we are seeking to avoid as legislators.

We have heard from Bill English earlier that it is our responsibility as lawmakers to try and prevent the wrong things from happening, the unintended consequences, and we need to be very careful, because one person’s choice and autonomy will be another person’s death sentence. Hard cases make very bad laws, and our law, in my view, should not be changed for a few persistent cases where it will expose far greater numbers of people to premature death.

As the Minister for Seniors over the past three years, I have seen up close the horrors of elder abuse, the scourge where family members inflict physical, psychological, emotional, and mental violence and neglect on their own family members. More than three-quarters of abusers are family members. A family is not a safe place to be, and the abuse of our elders, with an ageing population, is something we need to take into account with this particular bill. This bill will enable more people to predate on the vulnerable, with far too few—negligible, even—protections and safeguards.

I read the previous two bills that have come before this New Zealand Parliament, but this one is by far the worst. It is poorly crafted and drafted, in my view. It is irretrievable through the select committee process. We’ve consulted widely with medical and legal experts and believe that the Seymour bill and version is so fatally flawed that it couldn’t even be fully rewritten to prevent vulnerable people from being predated on.

So let’s look at what this bill actually requires. A person needs to self-assess that they experience “unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved in a manner that he or she considers tolerable;”. What does that mean? It is way wide open to interpretation. For example, an 18-year-old—it could be your son or your daughter or grandchild, a person with a significant disability or a chronic illness, including mental illness, depression, or schizophrenia. Once that person, by simply expressing the wish—and that’s the word that is used, wish—to contemplate suicide, then there is an obligation on the medical practitioner to take it further. This highly prescriptive bill has a regime all of its own that triggers an automatic series of mandatory steps that a medical practitioner is then obliged to follow with the sole aim of facilitating that person’s death. How can an 18-year-old—or an 80-year-old, for that matter—make such a decision in a mentally unwell state?

Of course, they can’t get help from the doctor, who’s not allowed to recommend other treatments or even encourage the patient to discuss it with family. This is the detail of the reality of this bill.

If the doctor has a conscientious objection and won’t assist with the suicide, the doctor is then obliged and required to provide the patient with the names and contact details of practitioners on a special list of doctors who dispense death, who will facilitate the suicide. If they don’t refer them to someone on that list, that medical practitioner will be liable for criminal prosecution. But here’s the strange thing. For any doctor on the list who does assist a suicide, the bill provides a full defence and immunity, as long as they’ve acted “in good faith and without [actual] negligence”. So the full force of the law will not come upon that person but on the one who exercises their own conscience.

It’s putting our medical practitioners in an absolutely impossible situation, which is why they’ve all objected so strongly. The New Zealand Medical Association, the Australian and New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine, nurses, geriatric medicine specialists—they’re all horrified by this bill and they’re on record with their objection on the basis that it is completely contrary to their code of ethics and relationship of trust with their patient. “Irreversible decline in capability” is used in the bill—essentially, that’s a definition of anyone living with a disability. So the clear message is, if you’re disabled in any way with an irreversible decline in capability, you’re better off dead.

The answer is not to coerce and to kill, as this bill dictates; it is to continue to invest in world-class palliative care, and that’s what we have in this country. Even if you are a person sympathetic to assisted suicide, this is not the bill to deliver it. And make no mistake about it, legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia is the exception and not the norm. New Zealand is on the right side of this. New Zealand law is adequate and has good provisions. We have world-class palliative care, and that is why I will never support this bill.

Stuff co.nz 27 December 2017
It is likely New Zealanders will be asked to vote in the next three years in a referendum on assisted suicide, or the End of Life Choice Bill. There is a danger that, having been inundated with stories of loved ones dying in lingering pain, the normally empathetic Kiwi public will end up voting on this issue with their hearts, and not their heads.

I will be voting against this bill in any referendum for four reasons.
1. People change their minds.
About four years ago my wife was diagnosed with a non-cancerous lung disease. A year later she was admitted to intensive care suffering from a spontaneous respiratory arrest caused by the disease.
Given only a 50/50 chance of recovery on admission, she was asked if she wanted to be resuscitated in the event of death. Her reply was “Why would I want to come back to this hell?” – so a Do Not Resuscitate order was instated.

2. Doctors are not always right.
In early 2017 my wife received a double lung transplant. Her recovery was not straightforward.
On day 10 she had developed respirator acquired pneumonia. Doctors were hopeful for her recovery, but warned me that because her immune system was being suppressed (to prevent rejection of the new lungs), it was not certain.

3. There will be some who will exploit those who choose to die early.
Given the strength of social and mainstream media, there is a risk innocent people will find themselves publicly at the centre of assisted suicide decisions.
Even if current legal protections of privacy are strengthened in the passing of a new bill, it’s likely that family members who disagree with a relative’s decision to die will be ‘outed’, and potentially vilified by pro-euthanasia activists.
Is this fair? Especially if these people are recovering from the loss of a loved one?

4. The thin end of the wedge.
In Europe, it’s claimed there are already moves in place to extend the qualification for assisted suicide. At the moment, the patient must be suffering from a painful, terminal illness – but it may be that a simple “I can’t take life any longer” situation will soon be qualification enough.

Should these European countries go so far as to enact these extensions to their voluntary euthanasia laws, where will it lead? And will New Zealand follow?
READ MORE: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/100188136/my-wife-reversed-her-do-not-resuscitate-order–i-cant-support-euthanasia