Gmail - True Compassion Advocates update - stephenm.schwartz@gmail.com

Does anyone on any side of the death with dignity debacle care more about the patients than abut their own ideology?

This letter from the anti I-1000 crowd is EXACTLY the kind of extremism I wish both sides would avoid. We have a law, that law was .. in m y opinion ... poorly written. The similar law in Oregon works poorly (serves very few people in real need) and may become a real problem in both states if Obamacare does not rescue us from painful cost decisions about whether to encourage terminally ill people to off themselves vs. spending dollars on expensive palliative care.

I have not seen much from the other side so perhaps they are doing a better job. It appears that in WA state, as in Oregon, the great majority of physicians will refuse to write the death prescription cocktail. The reasons for this may be that the law violates the Hippocratic Oath and requires a physician to make a very difficult differential diagnostic distinction between depression in response to threat of death and clinical depression. Unfortunately, as written and practiced in Oregon, this means a few docs, who usually do not know the patient, end up writing prescriptions for this momentous act.

We can and should do better.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carrie Herring
Date: Thu, May 21, 2009 at 9:25 AM
Subject: True Compassion Advocates update
To: steves@u.washington.edu




May 21, 2009

Dear True Compassion Advocates,

We just wanted to send a quick note to apprise you of what True Compassion Advocates (TCA) has been up to—and to thank you for your ongoing compassionate action.

Did you know that about 2/3 of Washington State hospitals have decided to opt out of ending the lives of vulnerable patients via assisted suicide? And a great many nursing homes and assisted living facilities are also opting out? And that most doctors in the state won’t dispense lethal drug overdoses instead of the care and true compassion patients need? These life-affirming policies are in no small part related to our efforts and yours. So many of you have called and sent letters to your area hospitals, nursing homes, and doctors that many lives are being saved, even now. The truth is,"

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.