Columns

Is suicide a crime? Assisted suicide? How about physician-assisted... 

Should assisted dying for the terminally ill be legalized? 

In Maryland, the medical license of anesthesiologist Dr. Lawrence D. Egbert, 87, has been revoked for helping 6 sick persons to commit suicide. The Maryland Board of Physicians found that he had engaged in “unprofessional conduct” while working as the medical director for the Final Exit Network. [“Doctor Loses License Over Assisted Suicides," by Alan Blinder (New York Times Dec. 31, 2014).]  

In the UK, leading figures from politics and the arts have demanded assisted dying be legalized, claiming that every fortnight a Briton ends her/his life in the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. They argue that the UK general election in May 2015 should not be allowed to derail the legislative process. (See November 30, 2012 Berkeley Daily Planet Senior Power column.)  

January 8^th’s Senior Power column was mostly about American senior and housing activist Helen Lima. Today’s column is about British assisted suicide campaigner Debbie Purdy on the occasion of her death at age 51. ["Assisted suicide campaigner Debbie Purdy dies aged 51," by Mark Tran (Guardian [London], Dec. 30, 2014).] 

Debbie Purdy (1963 – 2014) was a British political activist from Bradford, West Yorkshire, notable for her challenge to the law in England and Wales as relates to assisted suicide and for her primary progressive multiple sclerosis. In 2009, it was announced that guidelines for England and Wales on assisted suicide law would be published by the UK Government. The guidelines "come after a legal battle won by Debbie Purdy", as "Law Lords accepted earlier this year that [Purdy] had a right to know whether her husband would be prosecuted if he helped her to travel abroad to commit suicide." 

Purdy and her counsel argued that the Director of Public Prosecutions was infringing on her human rights by failing to clarify how the Suicide Act of 1961 is enforced. Purdy's particular concern was to discover if any actions her husband, Omar Puente, took in assisting her suicide would lead to his prosecution. No family member of the 92 Brits who have gone abroad for an assisted suicide has been prosecuted but some have been charged and have had to wait for months before hearing the charges had been dropped. Purdy said that if her husband would be exposed to prosecution for helping her travel to Switzerland to a Dignitas clinic to die, she would make the journey sooner while she was able to travel unassisted. This would save her husband from exposure to the law but would have forced Purdy to make her decision on dying before she felt it was absolutely necessary. 

The hearing began in October 2008. The Director of Public Prosecutions said that Purdy could not be given any reassurance that her husband would not be prosecuted because the law was clear that assisting suicide is an offense. In December 2008 Sky TV broadcast a program in which a man with motor neurone disease was shown committing suicide with assistance. There had also been the UK case of a Mr. James who went to Switzerland with the aid of his parents after being paralyzed while playing rugby; the Department of Public Prosecutions determined that to prosecute the parents would be against the public interest. These two events led to the issue of assisted suicide making the first story on BBC's Newsnight. Purdy appeared to debate the issue. She denied that it is society that makes disabled people wish to kill themselves and reasserted her belief that it is right to be able to seek assistance when one is physically incapable of committing suicide. 

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NEWS 

A geriatrician tells me that, if one is in good health and eats a balanced diet, the only proven vitamin requirements for people over age 65 are vitamin B12 and vitamin D3: Vitamin B12, 2.4 micrograms daily, Vitamin D3, about 1000 units daily. However, the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society advises persons over age 50 to get most of their B12 from supplements. And AARP says 800 international units daily; look for supplements that contain vita D3 (cholecalciferol). 

"New device allows deaf people to 'hear with their tongue'," by Matthew Sparkes (Daily Telegraph [London], Jan. 20, 2015). 

"Hearing-aid intervention helps individuals gradually adjust to devices" (Eurekalert [American Association for the Advancement of Science], Jan. 20, 2015). 

CALIFORNIA NEWS 

"New Program Combines Medicare and Medi-Cal in Santa Clara County," by Gerardo Fernandez (New America Media, January 11, 2015). 

The lack of regulation for California's in-home support services program, which pays people to look after seniors or the sick, means that many patients are left in dangerous situations. Read "When Home Caregivers Kill the Elderly With Neglect," by Anna Gorman (The Atlantic.Washington, District of Columbia, Jan. 6, 2015).