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Hi,

We have two articles that illustrate the push to not only legalize
assisted suicide (permission to kill), but show the actual "end-game"
goals of the euthanasia zealots who are behind these dark changes in our
society. What is the end-game goal? .... mandatory "permission" to
kill, i.e., the duty to die. This is what it has always been about,
just as Terri Schindler Schiavo was admitted to Hospice of the FL
Suncoast illegally, as she was not terminal at all, but disabled, and
then killed against her expressed wishes regarding life care (never
reported in the news media). An abused woman, who was denied proper
rehabilitation over several years time, resulting in further degradation
of her condition (never reported in the major media).

The future of health care is now health-kill, and these articles prove
it. See below.


Best wishes!

If people contemplate and really see the sanctity of life, their
"quality of life" arguments fall away and they will understand that we
are here to care for each other, not to kill each other. Caring, and not
convenience, is the sign of a civilized and just society!


Ron Panzer
for Hospice Patients Alliance
http://www.hospicepatients.org

"What I do you cannot do
but what you do, I cannot do.
The needs are great, and none of us,
including me, ever do great things.
But we can all do small things, with great love,
and together we can do something wonderful." - Mother Teresa

*************************************************

The Hospice Patients Alliance is a 501(c)(3) charitable patient advocacy
organization acting to preserve the original hospice mission and to
promote quality end-of-life services.


*************************************************


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,392962,00.html

Oregon Offers Terminal Patients Doctor-Assisted Suicide Instead of
Medical Care
Monday , July 28, 2008
By Dan Springer

This is part of the America's Future series airing on FOX News Channel,
looking at the challenges facing the country in the 21st century.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Some terminally ill patients in Oregon who turned to
their state for health care were denied treatment and offered
doctor-assisted suicide instead, a proposal some experts have called a
"chilling" corruption of medical ethics.

Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of
Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to
pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon's state-run health
plan for help.

Lane Individual Practice Association (LIPA), which administers the
Oregon Health Plan in Lane County, responded to Stroup's request with a
letter saying the state would not cover Stroup's pricey treatment, but
would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide.

"It dropped my chin to the floor," Stroup told FOX News. "[How could
they] not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to
pay to end my life?"

The letter, which has been sent to other terminal patients throughout
Oregon, follows guidelines established by the state legislature.

Oregon doesn't cover life-prolonging treatment unless there is better
than a 5 percent chance it will help the patients live for five more
years — but it covers doctor-assisted suicide, defining it as a means of
providing comfort, no different from hospice care or pain medication.

"It's chilling when you think about it," said Dr. William Toffler, a
professor of family medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. "It
absolutely conveys to the patient that continued living isn't worthwhile."

In issuing their latest Prioritized List of Health Services, state
officials reported a new emphasis on preventive care and cost
effectiveness. Dr. John Sattenspiel, LIPA's senior medical director,
defended the measures.

"I have had patients who would consider knowing that this is part of
that range of comfort care or palliative care services that are still
available to them, they would be comforted by that," Sattenspiel said.
"It really depends on the individual patient."

Toffler called it a callous practice that went against medical
convention.. "It corrupts the consistent medical ethic that has been in
place for 2,000 years," he said. "It's absolutely breathtaking."

Oregon is the only state to legalize doctor-assisted suicide, which came
into effect in 1997. Since that time, there have been 341 reported cases
where doctors provided lethal doses of medicine to patients to end their
lives.

Oregon voters have upheld the "Death with Dignity" law three times, and
Sattenspiel says it is the state's duty to inform patients of all their
legal options.

For Stroup, however, suicide was never an option. He fought back, and
the Oregon Health Plan eventually reversed its decision and is now
paying for his chemotherapy, giving him hope he'll be around a little
longer for his 80-year-old mother and five grandchildren.


********************

and in Washington:



http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=dedestaca&id=830&category=News%20&%20Me\
dia~News

Elenor K. Schoen
Selling Suicide in Seattle

( 14/08/08) A report on the state of the assisted suicide proposal in
Washington, and how efforts to lobby the state’s medical association
paid off.

OLYMPIA, Wash. As volunteers lugged boxes of signed petitions for
assisted suicide up the steps of the Washington Legislature, former Gov.
Booth Gardner announced: "We've crossed the first hurdle, and we’ve
crossed it cleanly, with room to spare. And I think we’re going to go
all the way. I'd bet on it."

His "Death With Dignity" supporters presented the secretary of state's
office with 320,000 signatures July 2. That's well above the minimum
requirement of 224,880.

Counting and verifying signatures has been completed, as of July 25,
allowing Initiative 1000 to be included on the November ballot.

Nancy Niedzielski symbolically signed the final petition. Two years ago,
Niedzielski watched her husband, Randy, die of brain cancer. At his
request, she is trying to change the law favoring physician-assisted
suicide, personally getting more than 1,600 signatures.

"Terminally ill patients in Washington should have the same choices that
they have in Oregon," Niedzielski said. "It is a compassionate act to
honor a person’s final wish. … Nobody, not the government and not the
Church, should tell you how much you have to suffer if you are
terminally ill." She said that if you wish to "choose a death with
dignity, that decision should be your decision."

But equally represented at the July 2 event were opponents of Initiative
1000. Duane French, a quadriplegic and director of Not Dead Yet,
Washington, joined fellow member Joelle Brouner, crippled by cerebral
palsy, and Drs. Susan Rutherford and Paddie O'Halloran for a press
conference.

French stressed that Gardner's campaign spent almost $1 million to
collect signatures, proving "they have very little public support and a
very small volunteer base."

Most funding for I-1000 has come from out-of-state, to which he
remarked: "To all the people in California and New York who sent money
so we in Washington can more easily kill ourselves, I think we have to
say, 'Thanks, but no thanks.'"

Peg Sandee, the executive director of the Portland, Ore.-based Death
With Dignity National Center, stated recently that: "Most of our
donations come from Washington, Oregon, California, New York and Florida."

She explained that the average donor to the non-profit effort is "a
55-year-old white woman from Portland." The center is dedicated to
seeing that the Oregon law is replicated in other states.

O'Halloran stressed the impact of assisted suicide on the most
vulnerable, low-income and disabled patients.

"We're concerned that an option to die by assisted suicide will come to
be perceived as a duty to die," she said.

Rutherford added: "I-1000 is dangerous because it permits bad medical
practice and shrouds it in secrecy."

The initiative has no peer review, no requirement for competence in
end-of-life care, while providing immunity for the participating
doctors, eliminating disciplinary actions or lawsuits for malpractice.

"Proponents often tell us to look how well things have worked in
Oregon," said O'Halloran. "But we really can’t be sure what's going on
in Oregon." The law prevents state officials from investigating deaths
caused by assisted suicide, with no penalties for non-reporting of
cases, or incomplete or inaccurate information.

The Washington State Medical Association agrees that I-1000 is a bad idea.

In a July 2 press release, the association said that members voted
against assisted suicide during a 2007 annual meeting and has opposed
the practice since 1991.

"We believe physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible
with the role of physicians as healers," said Washington State Medical
Association president, Dr. Brian Wicks. "Patients put their trust in
physicians, and that bond of trust would be irrevocably harmed by the
provisions of this dangerous initiative."

The American Medical Association, along with 49 state medical
associations, opposes assisted suicide. Even the Oregon Medical
Association supported repealing the state's "Death With Dignity Act" in
1997, characterizing it as "fundamentally flawed."

Wicks stated that I-1000 gives doctors power that we do not want and
that we believe is contrary to good medical practice … [distracting]
from symptom-directed end-of-life care, providing comfort for dying
patients and their families. Good care, Wicks emphasized, should remain
the focus, never shifting toward helping patients kill themselves. He
added that even those supporting assisted suicide in principle would
find problems with I-1000.

"Under I-1000, if a physician prescribes a lethal overdose, when that
physician completes the death certificate, he or she is actually
required to list the underlying disease as the cause of death, knowing
full well that the patient died due to the suicidal overdose he or she
prescribed," Wicks said. "To my knowledge, there’s no other situation in
medicine in which the death certificate is deliberately falsified and in
which this falsification is mandated by law."

Meanwhile, 15 Washington Democrat and Republican legislators have
declared their opposition to I-1000.

State Rep. Mark Miloscia, D-Federal Way, said: "We want to make certain
that people are pain-free, have dignity and control over their medical
treatment. ... But, Initiative 1000 replaces quality care with a cheap,
quick exit."

State Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, a registered nurse, agreed: "We
need to work together to protect those who might feel financial
pressures to end their lives early."

Boots on the Ground

The Coalition Against Assisted Suicide's chairman, Chris Carlson, says
he is "cautiously optimistic" about defeating I-1000. A seasoned
political campaigner, Carlson was press secretary to Idaho Gov. Cecil
Andrus and director of public affairs for the U.S. Department of the
Interior under President Carter. He is also in remission from cancer.

With enough signatures gathered for the ballot, "our natural allies will
be galvanized," he believes. And although the coalition may not outspend
Booth Gardner's campaign, Carlson believes they will outwork Gardner's
supporters.

Carlson sees a replay of the state’s initiative battle in 1991, where
sufficient doubts changed the minds of the undecided “squishy middle” to
defeat physician-assisted suicide in Washington, 54% to 46%.

He noted that there is "a not too thinly veiled, anti-Catholic bigotry"
in the pro-initiative campaign, but hopes Catholics will focus on this
life and death decision, saying: "This issue will rise or fall on how
strongly people of faith rise to the occasion."

Seattle Archbishop Alex Brunett stated recently: "Assisted suicide
suggests that the terminally ill have a responsibility to hurry up and
die.” But he said that the very real challenge of pain and suffering at
the end of life “tests our human resolve to reach out compassionately to
the dying."

In his pastoral capacity, Archbishop Brunett has seen that "when those
who are near death receive adequate care, [while being with] those who
love them, their last days can take on special meaning,” offering family
and friends “an opportunity for final expressions of love and
reconciliation."

Said the archbishop: "I believe that saying No to Initiative 1000 is a
meaningful way of saying Yes to life."

Elenor K. Schoen writes from Shoreline, Washington.


On the Net:

For more information, visit the Washington State Catholic Conference
website: www.TheWSCC.org/legislation.