Category Archives: News

Question 2 advocates say that it is all about “choice,” but in reality Question 2 will limit choice, because it incentivizes insurers to restrict, or even deny, coverage.  In today’s cost-cutting environment, where health-care options are limited, many people already … Continue reading →

MPs demand action after another patient is chosen to die without doctors telling family. Olive Goom, 85, was put on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway.  She died alone after doctors failed to tell relatives they were ending her life…. Mail … Continue reading →

Suicide is not health care, and prescribing death is not a doctor’s role…Question 2’s provisions are highly arbitrary, as even  is proponents acknowledge….Why such capricious line-drawing? Because, says [Dr. Marcia] Angell, that is the only way to make assisted-suicide “politically … Continue reading →

The group that put the “Death with Dignity” question on the Nov. 6 ballot says opponents are wrong to call the measure “assisted suicide.” “This is not about life versus death,” Dr. Marcia Angell of Dignity 2012 said Tuesday in … Continue reading →

Australia is witnessing a shift in public attitudes to possibly support euthanasia for people with dementia, says a leading expert on healthcare ethics. Chair in nursing at Deakin University, Professor Megan-Jane Johnstone, said alarmist and negative framing of Alzheimer’s disease … Continue reading →

GPs have been asked to select one in every 100 of their patients to go on a list of those likely to die over the next 12 months. The patients will be singled out for “end-of-life care,” potentially saving the … Continue reading →

Advocates consider the POLST, or Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment, an important tool that gives chronically and terminally ill patients greater control of their care in the final moments of their lives. Critics, including some physicians and Wisconsin’s Catholic bishops, … Continue reading →

The Independent Payment Advisory Board is designed to control runaway Medicare costs without cutting benefits, but physicians warn of unintended effects of cutting patient access. IPAB, authorized by the Affordable Care Act as a cost-containment provision, eventually might enable its … Continue reading →

Finally, if Death with Dignity passes, patients will be at greater risk to predatory insurance practices…. Given the option of assisted suicide, insurance companies may limit other treatments to cut cost. That means that patients, when weighing treatment options, may … Continue reading →

Look into the future if Obamacare remains. Texas has a futile care law permitting a hospital bioethics panel to refuse wanted life-sustaining treatment if they don’t think the patient’s life is worth the cost or has sufficient quality. It is … Continue reading →

An inquest heard that Mrs. Veasey’s health had been deteriorating, she had money worries and had been diagnosed with depression. The court was told she had met with someone from pro-choice website Exit international six weeks before taking her own … Continue reading →

A bill to regulate euthanasia in Colombia on Tuesday passed its first Congressional vote by 10 votes to four…Senator Armando Benedetti pointed out that the initiative sought to “give authority to the patient to request euthanasia where the conditions of … Continue reading →

New Jersey legislators are pushing for adoption of a law that would make New Jersey the third state, after Oregon and Washington, to allow assisted suicide. Although the bill in its current form calls for a referendum on assisted suicide, … Continue reading →

“As a Democrat committed to improving the quality of life for our citizens, I have a number of problems with Ballot Question 2 and am endorsing a ‘No’ vote,” Rogers said, in a press release by the group “No on … Continue reading →

Massachusetts would be “the first Eastern state, the first heavily Catholic state,” to adopt such a law, Dr. Marcia Angell told the Pew Center on the States.  “This will be a big, big advance in compassionate medicine, I think, and … Continue reading →

The High Court shocked the legal community by opening its new term with an order giving the Obama Justice Department just 30 days to respond to Liberty Counsel’s petition for rehearing. Liberty Counsel filed the petition on behalf of Liberty … Continue reading →

Forty-three hospital patients starved to death last year and 111 died of thirst while being treated on wards, new figures disclose today. The death toll was disclosed by the Government amid mounting concern over the dignity of patients on NHS … Continue reading →

The practice of transplanting organs from patients who die after voluntary euthanasia is becoming relatively common in Belgium. According to the website De Redactie, run by the Flemish public broadcasting company, VRT, Belgium is the world leader in organ removal … Continue reading →

This article by Dr. Ronald Pies is a followup to an earlier article published in PsychCentral. PsychCentral “Why Medical Ethics Must Sometimes Trump the Patient’s Choice” October 8, 2012 View

Relatives and friends of a person who commits assisted suicide have a high rate of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, according to a Swiss study in he latest issue of European Psychiatry.  “Witnessing the unnatural death of a significant person … Continue reading →

In his quest for a peaceful death, Mr. Bedford has approached Dignitas — an assisted dying clinic in Switzerland that helps foreigners with “unendurable disabilities” end their lives.  The Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke is confident Mr. Bedford’s application will … Continue reading →

Compassion & Choices Hawaii, a nonprofit organization working to improve care and expand choice at the end of life, received 31 local inquiries in its first year of service. The figure comes from an annual report released by the Physician … Continue reading →

Quebec’s new government plans to table legislation legalizing doctor-assisted suicide by this spring. According to social services junior minister Veronique Hivon, patients should only have access to the service if they are adult Quebec residents with a serious and incurable … Continue reading →

A woman who helped her mother starve herself to death has called on Northern Ireland’s politicians to relax the laws on assisted suicide. The Lisburn life coach has sparked a fresh debate on the matter after bravely highlighting the story … Continue reading →

The Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians on Tuesday announced its opposition to a ballot question allowing certain terminally ill patients to take life-ending medications.  More than 1,000 family doctors are part of the academy, which joins the Mass. Medical Society … Continue reading →