As we all know, this past Novembers election saw Washington States voters duped into passing the so called “Death With Dignity” initiative, making us the second state to allow “doctor assisted suicide.”
The measure passed due to a massive campaign from out of state sources that see the death of others as “humane.” Or, as many refer to it, the “Culture of Death,” that group that sees suicide and abortion as peaceful and humane, but are virulently opposed to the execution of mass murderers.
Fortunately for Washington’s citizens, the Washington State Medical Association reminds us that just because a patient may request the physician assist in their suicide, health care providers are not required to assist in suicide. Their spokesman said,
“There’s no requirement if physicians aren’t comfortable with honoring their patients’ wishes.”
Likewise, Karina Jennings of Providence Health, the largest provider of healthcare in Eastern Washington said,
“We believe we don’t have to participate and plan to exercise a conscience clause allowing us to be exempt.”
The measure that passed by 59% of the vote is facing much opposition from within our state, rightfully so. As a Spokane Hospice statement said,
“[our] mission is to provide care and support for patients, not hasten their death.”
James Garner once spoke a line in the movie, Duel at Diablo,
“Death comes soon enough. Anyone who hurries it is a damn fool.”
We are told how wonderful Oregon’s Assisted Suicide has been working, but that isn’t exactly the truth. Several abuses to Oregon’s ‘Death With Dignity’ have been seen since it was passed and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Opposition from Healthcare Professionals in Clark County is growing and citizens are being encouraged to write the Southwest Washington Medical Center Board of Directors to encourage they consider their conscience under the conscience clause and not just blindly follow the folly of ‘Physician Assisted Suicide.’
Examples of how you might construct your own words to write in opposition to ‘Physician Assisted Suicide’ to be sent to SWMC can be seen here, and an example for workers within the Healthcare Profession and Healthcare professionals to write to Healthcare Facilities is located here.
If you would like to add your voice to the growing opposition, use the letters as a guide to write in your own words and send copies to the listed persons here.
A lot of information can be gained by visiting the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide.
Several other abuses of End of Life Decisions have been compiled by Not Dead Yet.
As the Culture of Death dulls the senses of our population with their soft words and hiding of the intent to just let people die, falsely believing it to be humane, I am reminded of some of the words found within the Classic Hippocratic Oath,
“I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.”
The Modern Version removes those words, but acknowledges one’s conscience by including,
“Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.”
As members of the Culture of Death continue their push for us to accept premature death, I am reminded of words I read from another Doctor long ago,
“The underlying motive was the desire to help individuals who could not help themselves and were thus prolonging their lives in torment. … To quote Hippocrates today is to proclaim that invalids and persons in great pain should never be given poison. But any modern doctor who makes so rhetorical a declaration without qualification is either a liar or a hypocrite. … I never intended anything more than or believed I was doing anything but abbreviating the tortured existence of such unhappy creatures… I am convinced that today they have overcome their distress and personally believe that the dead members of their families were given a happy release from their sufferings.”
From testimony given by Dr. Karl Brandt, Adolf Hitler’s personal physician and head of Nazi Germanys Euthanasia Program. Sentenced to death and executed June 2, 1948 at Landsberg prison in Bavaria for War Crimes.
I-1000 may have passed into accepted law, but valid reasons remain to oppose Physician Assisted Suicide.
I urge you to follow the example letters given above and contact the necessary people at Southwest Washington Medical Center to remind that not only do the citizens of Clark County Washington have a conscience, so do they.
As James Garner spoke in the movie above, “Death comes soon enough. Anyone who hurries it is a damn fool.”
Tags: Abuses of Assisted Suicide, Assisted Suicide, Clark County, Coalition Against Assisted Suicide, Culture of Death, Death With Dignity, Dr. Karl Brandt, End of Life, Euthanasia, I-1000, Providence Health, Southwest Washington Medical Center, SWMC, Washington State
January 6, 2009 at 4:43 am
The hospice people are great at relieving pain, anxiety, and suffering. When you or a relative are caught up in the dying process, simple political slogans are really not all that meaningful. A lot of conservatives will tell you its their life and choices not yours to jam down others throats. Many of those voted for the new law.
January 6, 2009 at 7:03 am
Pat, do you mean slogans like “Death With Dignity?”
Hospice care is great as far as I have known.
Sorry that you feel letting others know this new “law” has a conscience clause is “jamming it down their throats.” I’d have thought letting a cancer patient know that her insurance won’t pay for a treatment, but will pay for suicide is “jamming it down their throat.”