Helping Patients Live vs. Helping Them Die

Blog, End of Life, Hot Topics, Medicine & Health, United States / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director

Cultural Suicide On Sunday, 28 May 2017, The Tennessean published a full page set of articles on the problem of suicide amongst the armed forces in our nation. The year 2012 saw a peak of 22 U.S. veterans killing themselves per day (Jake Lowary, “‘I can’t do barbecues:’ Veteran says“). The Department of Veterans Affairs plans a 7.5 percent budget increase to $186.1 million in 2018 — all to address suicide prevention, the department’s “highest clinical priority” (Jake Lowary, “Suicide rising in the military, but some programs give veterans hope“).

In light of these sobering statistics, it ...read more

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Morphing and Transforming: The Physician-Assisted Suicide Debate

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D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director

For years, Jack Kevorkian was synonymous with assisted suicide. Seeing patients after death was not sufficient for the pathologist; he wanted to help them to that state. Kevorkian’s first kit was made from flea-market items. That was 1989; the euthanasia group at that time was called “The Hemlock Society.”

Kevorkian lived in Michigan; ironically, his first subject, Janet Adkins, traveled from Portland, Oregon, in 1990 to use Kevorkian’s machine in his parked van. He started her i.v., but she had to activate the machine to administer the lethal substances.

Kevorkian went to prison for his illegal activities, ...read more

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Chancellor McCoy and the Way of Wisdom

Blog, Europe, United States / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

What does Tennessee have to do with Switzerland (featured in the fake ad pictured below)? Less than it could have, given yesterday’s decision to uphold the State of Tennessee’s ban on assisted suicide. The decision by Chancellor Carol L. McCoy has the rather counter-intuitive effect of the State winning without someone losing their head. Read on below for the details . . .

Fake ad image from Salvo, used with permission.

“If you can keep your head when all about you, Are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . ...read more

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Slip Slidin’ Away

Blog, End of Life, Europe, United Kingdom, United States / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

I doubt that Paul Simon had Physician-Assisted Suicide (P-AS) in mind when he penned the words to “Slip Slidin’ Away,” but they seem strangely apropos. The terms in the debate are the first to slip, slide away: the Hemlock Society became Compassion and Choices. The latter, which is involved in the Tennessee debate, is hopeful that physician-assisted suicide will become “aid-in-dying”; that is, before it slips into voluntary euthanasia, and then slides away into involuntary euthanasia.

What would happen if physician-assisted suicide (P-AS) were legal?

The role of physicians would be drastically altered. Guaranteeing ...read more

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