Monday, March 2, 2015

Don’t pass death with dignity act

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/2236819-155/letter-dont-pass-death-with-dignity

I am a lawyer in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal. Our law is based on a similar law in Oregon. Both laws are similar to HB391, which is pending in the Utah legislature. I disagree with Nancy Thompson that passing that bill will enhance individual choice (Feb. 27).

Legal assisted suicide is, instead, a recipe for elder abuse. HB391, like Washington's law, allows one of two witnesses on the lethal dose request form to be an heir who will financially benefit from the patient's death. Once the lethal dose is issued by the pharmacy, there is no oversight. Even if the patient struggled, who would know?  (For more information, click here).

Thompson compares legalizing assisted suicide to pet euthanasia in which the owner, not the pet, makes the decision to end the pet's life. More to the point, the pet does not get to choose.
I hope that you can keep assisted suicide out of Utah.

Don't make Washington's mistake.

Margaret Dore
Seattle


Sunday, March 1, 2015

Problems with H.B. 391

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

H.B. 391 seeks to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Utah.  I am a lawyer in Washington State where we have a similar law.  Our law is based on a law in Oregon.  

Problems include:


1.  HB 391, if enacted, will encourage people with years to live to throw away their lives.

HB 391 seeks to legalize assisted suicide for persons with a "terminal disease," which is defined as having less than six months to live.  In Oregon's law, which uses the same definition, young adults with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, are "eligible" for assisted suicide.  Such persons can have years, even decades, to live.  See https://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/a-2270-3r-memo-12-02-14.pdf   "Eligible" patients can also have years to live because doctors can be wrong.  See https://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/terminal-uncertainty.pdf and https://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/signed-john-norton-affidavit_001.pdf

2.  HB 391, if enacted, will allow health care providers/institutions to use coverage incentives to steer patients to suicide.

In Oregon, that state's Medicaid Plan steers patients to suicide through coverage incentives.  If HB 391 is enacted, Utah health care providers/institutions will be able to do the same thing.  For more information about Oregon's situation, see the affidavit of Kenneth Stevens, MD, at this link:  https://maasdocuments.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/dr-stevens-affidavit_001.pdf 

3.  Legalization is a recipe for elder abuse. 

HB 391, like Washington's law, has no oversight at the death.  No doctor is required to be present. Not even a witness is required.  This situation creates the opportunity for an heir, or another person who will benefit from the patient's death, to administer the lethal dose to the patient without his consent. Even if he struggled, who would know?

4.  Increased suicide

In Oregon, other suicides have increased with the legalization of physician-assisted suicide.  See http://www.choiceillusion.org/2014/03/the-high-financial-cost-of-regular.html Legalization, regardless, sends the wrong message to young people that suicide is an acceptable solution to life's problems. Utah already has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation.  See http://www.standard.net/Health/2014/05/22/Utah-suicide-rate-soars

5.  Washington's similar law.

For a short article about Washington's similar law, please go here (non-lawyers tell me they like it):  https://www.kcba.org/newsevents/barbulletin/BView.aspx?Month=05&Year=2009&AID=article5.htm

Friday, February 27, 2015

Utah man, 75, pleads guilty in death of ailing wife The Salt Lake Tribune

http://www.sltrib.com/news/2229855-155/utah-man-75-pleads-guilty-in

A 75-year-old Roy man accused of killing his ailing wife — after he purportedly studied methods of assisted suicide — has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of attempted murder.

Dennis Vance Chamberlain was charged in Ogden's 2nd District Court with first-degree felony murder in the death of his wife, 70-year-old Jean Chamberlain, on Feb. 16, 2014.

On Thursday, Chamberlain pleaded guilty to attempted murder. As part of the plea deal, attorneys stipulated to a sentence of six years to life in prison, according to Deputy Weber County Benjamin Willoughby. The murder charge was punishable by a 15-years-to-life prison term.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Judge to set bail for Roy man accused of killing his wife

http://www.kutv.com/news/features/local/stories/vid_7381.shtml

(KUTV) Bail will be set Friday for a Roy man accused of killing his wife.

Dennis Chamberlain, 74, is charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutors say Chamberlain killed his wife in February.

They claim he bought an assisted suicide manual then used chemicals, bags and hoses to make her death look natural.

A judge will set bail and hear evidence in the case to decide if it should go to trial Friday.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Roy man's actions may have been a precursor to murder

http://www.kutv.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_12308.shtml

(KUTV) A Roy man who police say killed his wife sent ominous letters to her siblings talking about assisted suicide months before her death.

Dennis Chamberlain is charged with murdering his wife of 48 years and apparently made no secret that he had death on his mind. According to Chamberlain's sister in law Janis Farran he, "would often send bizarre letters about this or that, but when Jean died they began to wonder if he was laying the groundwork for her murder."

Chamberlain wrote a letter stating some research he was doing on ending a life, but no one thought he'd actually do such a thing. Family members thought it was just another bizarre letter from their odd brother in law.

Farran says the letter came seven month before her sister Jean died. In the letter Chamberlain talked about books he was reading, including Final Exit which is a handbook on assisted suicide.

Farran said she was not immediately alarmed, "You just didn't think he would do such a thing.  I just kind of thought what a strange guy who would write something like that you know, you just don't think anything like that would really happen,"

Chamberlain was infamous for his peculiar writings says Farran, many in the family simply ignored him or returned the letters to him unopened.

"I did speak to another sibling about it and whether or not we should do anything about it and we both just thought well he's probably just writing a crazy letter. He'd always write letters to people with crazy stories and all that," explained Ferran.

Jean who'd suffered a stroke years ago died in February and her husband didn't contact police or doctors. He simply announced to family members that their sister was dead. Earlier this year police exhumed her body in part because of the letter and a search of Chamberlains internet history showed he had searched for information on gases and medicine that could not be detected in an autopsy.

Ferran is understandably upset by the news saying, "I'm just heartbroken that I didn't do more about it, oh my God, I never thought this would happen." 

While there are second thoughts, there is also relief that Jean's alleged killer is behind bars. Ferran added, "I'm just so happy that this guy is not going to get away with it, I thought he was going to get away with it."

Although she had a stroke, Farran says her sister was not that sick. She says Dennis made her seem more ill than she ways and it set the stage for her death.

(Copyright 2014 Sinclair Broadcasting Group.)

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Monday, January 27, 2014

"Is there a way to allow a person to end his life without making someone else a criminal?"

By Margaret Dore, Esq.

A legislator considering an assisted suicide law asked me this question: "Is there a way to allow a person to end his life without making someone else a criminal?"

This was my (slightly edited) response:

People take their lives all the time.  One of my cousins shot himself and another threw himself in front of a train.  There was no criminality involved.  Also, if people are in pain, palliative care laws allow medical personnel to give patients copious amounts of drugs, including up to sedation, which can hasten the patient's death. This is the principal of double effect.  This is legal.  For more information, read the Affidavit of Kenneth Stevens, MD, page 3, paragraph 13.

There is also palliative care abuse in which no one seems to be held accountable, except for maybe one case in California where doctors relied on a wealthy patient's daughters, who said that their father was really bad off and didn't want treatment, which was not the case.  At least, that's what's claimed by the man's son. See William Dotinga, "Grim Complaint Against Kaiser Hospital," Court House News Service, February 6, 2012.

I've had like 15-20 contacts in the past year by people upset about their family member being suddenly off'd by medical personnel and/or having DNR's put on family members/friends without the patient's consent.  My caregiver friends also talk about guarding their patients in the hospital.  Here are some letters from Montana.  http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/2013/04/dont-give-doctors-more-power-to-abuse.html

Here's a letter from Washington State where assisted suicide is legal. The letter talks about doctors being quick with the morphine and also regarding the conduct of an adult son shortly after our assisted suicide law was passed ("an adult child of one of our clients asked about getting the pills [to kill the father].  It wasn't the father saying that he wanted to die"). http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/2012/07/dear-montana-board-of-medical-examiners.html  Here's a letter from a wife about how she was afraid to leave her husband alone after a doctor pitched assisted suicide to her husband. http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/2013/01/i-was-afraid-to-leave-my-husband-alone.html

There is also the issue that people who say they want to die don't mean it, as with any suicide.  See http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/p/what-people-mean-when-they-say-they.html

I've had two clients whose fathers signed up for the Oregon/Washington assisted suicide acts.  With the first case, one side of the family wanted the father to use the act and the other side didn't.  He spent the last months of his life torn over whether of not he should kill himself.  His daughter was also traumatized.  He died a natural death.  There is a Swiss study that you might be interested in, that 1 out of 5 family members were traumatized by witnessing the legal assisted suicide of a family member.  See http://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/family-members-traumatized-eur-psych-2012.pdf

In my other case, the father had two suicide parties and it's not clear that it was voluntary.  My client, his son, was told that his dad had said "You're not killing me, I'm going to bed").  Regarding the next day, my client was told that his dad was already high on alcohol when he drank the lethal dose.  But then the person telling him this changed his story.  In Montana, Senator Jeff Essman, made a relevant observation regarding this point:
"[All] the protections [in Oregon's law] end after the prescription is written.  [The proponents] admitted that the provisions in the Oregon law would permit one person to be alone in that room with the patient. And in that situation, there is no guarantee that that medication is self-administered.
So frankly, any of the studies that come out of the state of Oregon's experience are invalid because no one who administers that drug . . . to that patient is going to be turning themselves in for the commission of a homicide."
Senate Judiciary Hearing on SB 167 on February 10, 2011

I, however, doubt that a person in Oregon could be prosecuted.  If you read the act carefully, there is no requirement of patient consent to administration of the lethal dose, and to the extent that's ambiguous, there's the rule of lenity.  In Washington State, prosecutors are required to report assisted suicide deaths as "Natural" - no matter what - at least, that's what the regulation says: http://www.doh.wa.gov/portals/1/Documents/5300/DWDAMedCoroner.pdf   How can you prosecute someone for homicide if the death is required to be reported as "Natural?"

Here in Washington, we have already had some informal proposals to expand the scope of our assisted suicide act.  One in particular disturbed me.  A Seattle Times column suggested euthanasia as a solution for people unable to support themselves, which would be involuntary euthanasia.  See Jerry Large, "Planning for old age at a premium," March 8, 2012, which states:
"After Monday's column,  . . . a few [readers] suggested that if you couldn't save enough money to see you through your old age, you shouldn't expect society to bail you out. At least a couple mentioned euthanasia as a solution."  (Emphasis added)
So, if you worked hard and paid taxes all your life and then your company pension plan goes belly up, this is how you want society to pay you back?

As a Democrat, I see us as looking out for the little guy, not passing laws to protect perpetrators, healthcare systems, etc. from legitimate claims.  I hope that you will vote against any effort to legalize assisted suicide/euthanasia.

Thank you for writing me back.

Margaret Dore