What’s Happening with Physician-Assisted Suicide?

Blog, End of Life, Other Voices, United States / /

Mrs. Jane Patton is a Vanderbilt University graduate, a nurse, and worked most recently in clinical research. Her interest in bioethics began in college with thinking through Roe v. Wade and the inherent value of human life. She has done further work in bioethics, and now volunteers with The Tennessee CBC. Below, Jane Patton addresses recent developments in physician-assisted suicide.

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Here we are in 2017, loaded with the benefits of technological innovation. In healthcare the movement is at warp speed such that we can be like frogs in the proverbial frying pan, not taking to heart the implications of such rapid and ...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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What Hippocrates Knew

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

Recently, I had the opportunity to hear Dr. John Patrick speak. It was a fairly wide-ranging lecture, but the mention of the Registry of Hippocratic Physicians caught my ear. So I contacted him to ask about that, and he agreed to a telephone interview. That follows below . . .

D. Joy Riley (DJR): How shall I introduce you to our readers? You are a British physician, with extensive experience feeding malnourished children in the Caribbean and Africa. You now call Ottawa, Canada, your home. What else do they need to know about you?

Dr. John Patrick ...read more

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Taking stock: Where are we now?

Blog, Emerging Technologies, End of Life, Engineering Humans, Genomic & Genetics Issues, United Kingdom, United States / /

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

Taking stock of where one is at the beginning of a new project or a new year is a good idea. Where we are in the entire realm of bioethics is beyond the scope of one blog post, but what follows are some landmarks discernible in January 2016…

Physician-Assisted Suicide

On Sunday, 24 January, John Jay Hooker, Tennessee lawyer, politician, and activist, died. Mr. Hooker had most recently championed “death with dignity” — physician-assisted suicide — in a proposed bill and in the courts. By the time of his death, neither the legislature nor the courts had provided ...read more

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We Were There…

Blog, United States / /

As the year 2015 comes to a close, we at The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture look back over a year of involvement in a number of important bioethics issues.

1) We were there when the Tennessee Senate Health and Welfare Committee met in Legislative Plaza Room 12 on 9 June 2015 to hear testimony regarding “Death with Dignity,” otherwise known as Physician-assisted Suicide (P-AS). We heard the testimony of John Jay Hooker and others promoting the bill. The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture stayed after a prominent news anchor and her television crew left the hearing. We stayed so we ...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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Shifting Gears on Physician-Assisted Suicide?

Atlas, Blog, End of Life, Resource Room, United States / /

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

How “neutral” can one be regarding assisted suicide? How about a medical organization? This past week, The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture sent a letter of concern to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization:

Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 12:52:22 -0500

Subject: Physician-assisted suicide

Dear Board Members and Staff of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization:

It has come to my attention that you, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), are now considering changing your position statement from “opposing” physician-assisted suicide (P-AS) to taking a “neutral” ...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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Severing Our Roots

Blog, End of Life, United States / /

The Little Fool by Karen Swenholt. Image by Ian Riley Photography.

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

A couple of years ago, I was encouraged to meet a figurative artist (sculptress, in this case). So I drove many hours to meet Karen Swenholt, and the drive was worth it. One of her pieces is pictured above. It is a metaphor that resonates with many of us: the man feels rooted, bound to the earth, or his circumstances, etc., and yearns to be free. So he takes an instrument into his hand — a knife — to free himself from his hateful condition, not ...read more

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Physician-Assisted Suicide: NOT Exactly What Its Proponents Advertise It To Be

Blog, End of Life, United States / /

This Australian stamp was issued in celebration of the General Assembly of World Medical Associations almost 50 years ago. At that time, the hypodermic syringe was a symbol of cure. Now, the picture of gloved hands administering an injection can represent something much more menacing.

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

The topic of physician-assisted suicide (P-AS) is a persistent one, especially when people are in pain or are worried about impending death. We need to think deeply and well about this issue. To help, the Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture is addressing P-AS from a different perspective for the second time in as many ...read more

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