The number of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients will probably double in the United States over the next 20 years. Here’s a real life example from Connecticut of what may happen to some of them.

In September, an elderly lawyer with Alzheimer’s, George Brodigan, died at home.  Beside his bed was a half-empty bottle of rum and a copy of Derek Humphry's "Final Exit," a suicide manual. Yellow pills were found beneath his body.

Someone had obviously helped Mr Brodigan to kill himself. Police arrested his 46-year-old son Bruce, a teacher, who lives in the neighbouring state of Massachusetts. During the investigation the son lied repeatedly, police said. He denied that he was present when his father died; he denied helping in preparing the suicide; he was misleading about the use of medications. He helped his father write a suicide note and did not discourage him from acting. He intentionally waited until he was sure that… click here to read whole article and make comments

We’ll have to wait to see what happens in this case from France, but it shows what can happen when parents are pushed to the limit in caring for handicapped children.

The father of a six-year-old girl was arrested early in January in a small town near Nemours after suffocating her.  The girl had multiple disabilities, was confined to a wheelchair and had difficulty speaking. The mother was suffering from depression. Apparently the man told police that the girl had become too heavy a burden to bear.

Although we cannot sit in judgement in such cases, the story suggests that the couple had inadequate social support from extended family or the government. It is curious, too, that in this, and similar cases, parents would rather kill their own child than place them in a government institution. It’s an odd way of showing mercy. ~ AFP, Jan 5

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After reading about an 84-year-old man in Taipei who helped his wife to die, I thought that the concept of "mercy killing" needs to be examined more carefully. The wife of Wang Ching-hsi had Parkinson’s disease and was bed-ridden with two broken legs. They were a lonely, but financially comfortable couple. Mr Wang wrote at least two blog entries about euthanasia and suicide on November 27 and December 5.

On December 26 he acted. He drugged his wife with sleeping pills and then took a screwdriver and hammered it into his wife’s skull. There was very little bleeding. Then he rang the police and told them: “I killed my wife. Please send someone here to take care of the rest.” He also rang his pastor and asked him to come to pray over his wife’s body.

… click here to read whole article and make comments

A graveyard uncovered at a psychiatric hospital in Austria is likely to contain the remains of patients killed under the Nazi euthanasia programme. It is a grim reminder of the ideology behind the euthanasia movement, that there are human lives not worthy of being lived, and of the involuntary deaths to which it led.

Oliver Seifert, a historian who recently found documents relating to the graveyard, said that around 220 people may be buried there, the Guardian reports. They may not all be victims of the Nazi programme, but Seifert said the death rate of patients at Hall in the Tyrol went up considerably towards the end of the war. The institution was not officially part of the euthanasia programme, under which tens of thousands of people with disabilities were killed, but may illustrate how doctors generally bought into the “life unworthy of life” ideology.

Alternatively,… click here to read whole article and make comments

The national newspaper, The Australian, ran an article this week calling for a national hotline to be set up to deal with the problem of Elder Abuse. Council of the Aging chief executive, Ian Yates, made the call for a national phone line adding that the problem of Elder Abuse was, “likely to continue with the aging population.”

This comes at a time when Queensland authorities have laid charges in five separate incidences of neglect of elderly women by carers, the article reported.

“One of the problems is that when people suspect elder abuse, they don’t know who to call,” said Mr Yates. “What we need is a national 1-800 number.”

The report also called of mandatory reporting of suspected elder abuse that would compel carers and health professionals to report their suspicions.

No doubt such a move would highlight the issue in the community… click here to read whole article and make comments

 

On the 26th of November, the Australian Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) dismissed complaints against Exit International’s billboard advertising campaign that ran in Sydney. The billboard, white writing on purple background, displayed the text: 85% of Australians Support Voluntary Euthanasia. Our Government Doesn’t! Make them Listen.

The ASB received a number of complaints, some focussed, others expressing a more general sense of outrage. A number made the suggestion that the claims made were misleading (more on that later). A large number focussed more directly on the problem with promoting suicide.

Australia has a significant problem with youth suicide in particular. Australian media and those working with children and young people are extremely sensitive about the mention or portrayal of suicide in any manner. Any television program that contains even a remote connection bears a warning and also the contact details for support organisations such as… click here to read whole article and make comments

A man who has been a quadriplegic since he was 3 is the latest focus of right-to-die news in the US. For about 18 months Dan Crews, 27, of Antioch, Illinois, has demanded that his ventilator be removed. But his local hospital has refused. Doctors say that he is depressed and is not capable of making an informed decision. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and ABC News both ran features on Mr Crews late last month emphasing the limitations of his day-to-day life.

"I have no friends. I have no education. No education prospects. No job prospects. I have no love prospects," he told the Journal-Sentinel. "All I want is to no longer live like this… I feel like I'm the only person in the country who does not have a way or an option to kill myself.”

He was swamped with letters, emails and phone calls after… click here to read whole article and make comments

Here’san alternative view of the UK’s recently-formed Commission on Assisted Dying.It plans to investigate assisted suicide and euthanasia and come up with anobjective answer.

 

Poppycock,says London Telegraph columnist George Pticher.

But its findings are already a done deal, of course. To recap: not only is Lord Falconer a well-known advocate of euthanasia, who has tried to introduce it into legislation in the Lords, but he is chairing the “Commission”. At the last count, nine of the 12 “Commission” members are on record as supporting some change in the law to allow some form of euthanasia in the UK (the remaining three are best described as neutral-to-wobbly, so there are no actual opponents of a change in the law here). The “Commission” is bankrolled by Sir Terry Pratchett, the novelist who believes those of infirm mind should be put to… click here to read whole article and make comments

A stalwart supporter of assisted suicide in the UK, Lord Falconer, the former lord chancellor, will chair a commission to investigate whether it should be legalised. Sponsored by the left-leaning think tank Demos, the self-styled “Commission on Assisted Dying” plans to hold public hearings and take evidence from experts before issuing a report in December 2011.

Lord Falconer says that the commission will be objective: "We approach the task, each one of us, determined to come up with a report of quality which will be respected as an objective, dispassionate and authoritative analysis of the issues and as providing a reliable way forward.”
However, critics have already complained about its independence and its funding links to the lobby group Dying with Dignity.

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the disability charity Scope, told the BBC: "we are deeply concerned that this pseudo 'commission' will not reflect the concerns and… click here to read whole article and make comments

The tenth anniversary of the legalization of euthanasia in the Netherlands on November 28 passed almost unnoticed. It was the first country in the world to set down legal guidelines which allowed doctors to kill people. In a brief feature, Radio Netherlands asked why so few other countries had followed the Dutch example. Only neighbouring Belgium (2002) and Luxembourg (2009) have legalised euthanasia, although in Switzerland and the US States of Oregon, Washington and Montana assisted suicide is permitted.

According to medical ethics expert Evert van Leeuwen, other countries still believe that killing is only allowed in wartime and for state-mandated executions of criminals. “Here in the Netherlands, we tend to take a different view,” Prof Van Leeuwen says. “Here, a doctor gets to choose between his [Hippocratic] oath and his patient’s wishes. If his patient wants to die, he is allowed to assist them”.

Other reasons… click here to read whole article and make comments