Originally Posted - April 16, 2006

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Euthanasia and assisted suicide is not some new phenomenon just reaching America’s shores, but has been decades in slowly, incrementally creeping into our society, into the medical field and medical industry, into the legal field, into government, and even into the clergy. Euthanasia and assisted suicide had been practiced in parts of Europe for years, before it was finally legalized into public policy. Similarly, euthanasia and the specific types of assisted suicide have evolved and are practiced within the United States, under terminology such as futile care, terminal sedation, and hastening death, whether people know about it, acknowledge it, or deny or accept it.

With the medical field as willing participants, or unknowing participants, the practice of euthanasia was easy to establish and advance in the United States under the pretense of end of life wishes, choices, compassion, dignity, and self rights. First, by convincing the medical field that treatment was completely ineffective when patients had severe pain, particularly with a terminal disease and at the end stages of life, along with the notion that assisted suicide is merely a compassionate, merciful, and dignified act for those in severe pain. Secondly, by convincing the public the act of assisted suicide is their “end of life choice” and their “self determining right” by virtue of pushing the philosophy into the public square and the medical field.

The effort took help from medical professionals and medical organizations that are dedicated to legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia via legislative and public policy change. Philanthropists and the funding behind the programs tailored to the medical professions have played a major part as well. Others within the field of medicine are uninformed, misinformed, or misguided, and are completely unaware this encroachment has occurred. If many in medicine are unaware, how can the general public be aware?

Dr. Ronald Cranford is one of many well known health care professionals touting the benefits of assisted suicide and euthanasia by a quality of life ethic. Ron Cranford uses his diagnostic abilities to pronounce one “terminally ill” or “brain dead”, and that in turn leads to hastening death or terminally sedating one to death, or just plain euthanasia, via medical policies enacted to allow and encourage the practice. One of the most outstanding cases of Cranford’s involvement was Terri Schiavo.

Among those heavily involved in pushing euthanasia via legislative and public policy change in the U.S. is Myra Christopher. Myra has been instrumental in the push towards legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia on many fronts, largely through educational programs directed to healthcare givers and healthcare systems. She has spent more than 20 years in achieving that goal. http://www.practicalbioethics.org/cpb.aspx?pgID=962

The Midwest Bioethics Center was founded in 1985 out of Kansas City, Missouri, with Myra Christopher at the helm as President and CEO. Following a name change in December 1994, as the new Center for Practical Bioethics, Myra continued partnership with hospitals, health care plans, and healthcare systems as a consultant in ethical development on end of life care and end of life programs.

The Center’s focus is the “ethical issues in healthcare organizations, to healthcare professionals, in the life sciences research, aging and the end of life, and disparities in health and healthcare.” Their agenda includes initiatives with the National Association of Attorney’s General and the Federation of State Medical Boards. At the same time, programs are underway concerning long term care ethics and pediatric palliative care. There is no doubt there are other programs underway of which we are unaware.

The Center for Practical Bioethics maintains they respond to ethical issues in health and healthcare and assist the public and organizations find solutions to those complex issues. Myra’s information is heavily entrenched within medical literature. The center also maintains they are an independent organization in bioethical work. However, the center cannot claim independence as an organization with Myra openly promoting euthanasia, commonly referred to as the right to die, along with her ties to Last Acts, a right to die organization which emanated from the Euthanasia Society, and is now defunct.

Myra and her center have been involved with, associated with, and developed:

1) Involved in the Nancy Cruzan case in consultation with the family and the state, and as a consultant to Senator John Danforth in drafting the Patient Self Determination Act. http://www.fha.org/acrobat/Patient%20Self%20Determination%20Act%201990.pdf

2) Bill Colby, a Kansas City attorney, argued for the Nancy Cruzan family before the U.S, Supreme Court, and then wrote a book on the experience, “Long Goodbye: The Deaths of Nancy Cruzan”. Afterwards, he became a national spokesman on end of life legal issues and supports Myra’s Center.

3) Developed a health care treatment directive and durable power of attorney in concert with local bar associations and medical societies that was distributed nationwide.

4) Established and executed PATHWAYS in 1997 in collaboration with Soros’ Project Death In America (PDIA), an initiative of 5 focus areas, which included 13 projects to improve care of the seriously ill and dying involving 600 organizations, including hospice and palliative care organizations.

5) Myra, along with Dr. Ira Byock, served as advisors to “On Our Own Terms”, a PBS four part documentary by Bill Moyers. The outreach campaign piece was launched in October 1999.

6) Developed “Caring Conversations”, a program to enhance communication between family and friends about end of life issues, and using AARP, became a national pilot program in 15 cities.

7) Convened a group of 25 clergy in January 1998, from different faith communities in Kansas City, along with other professionals, to develop a project to identify and overcome the barriers in meeting the psychological and spiritual needs of the dying, as part of the PATHWAYS project. They were known as the Compassion Sabbath Task Force at that time, and claim they were the largest multi faith group of religious leaders in Kansas City.

8) Developed Compassion Sabbath in 1999, as part and extension of the PATHWAYS Compassion Sabbath Task Force project, which provided clergy and religious leaders’ “tools” for addressing the spiritual needs of the dying and their families and which was also featured in US News and World Report. The Compassion Sabbath was active from 1998 to 2000.

9) Instrumental in development of national programs sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, such as Community State Partnerships To Improve End of Life Care and Rallying Points. The Center provides resources to state and community end of life coalitions throughout the country.

10) Serves on the Epidemiology of Dying and End of Life Experience (EDELE) Project Advisory Board of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). EDELE is an internet search tool specific to end of life care issues, information and research. The project was prompted by the Institute of Medicine and funded by grants from the Administration on Aging. The Carolinas Center for Hospice and End of Life Care, and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

  11) Entered into a project in February 2006, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to develop an end of life model for public health departments across the country. “The Center (Myra’s Center) will identify or develop for the CDC a comprehensive end of life curriculum tailored to the public health community, an end-of-life resource manual for state health departments, a legislative tip sheet for state health departments, a list of key end-of-life contacts in each state, a template for an end-of-life web page and a dissemination plan.” http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=37763&nfid=rssfeeds

This joint end of life project with CDC is most perturbing for several reasons, but largely due to Myra’s past affiliation with Last Acts who both openly advocated for euthanasia and the RWJF who funded Myra’s projects and Last Acts. Indeed, Myra has extensive experience in development of educational programs and curriculum involving the end of life theme.

Obviously, one of the major goals of the affiliation is education of healthcare professionals and auxiliary staff on bioethical issues, incorporating assisted suicide, hastening death, futile care, and terminal sedation policies into medical policy by legislative and public reform. Continuing education credits may be offered when the curriculum is developed and presented as an enticement for medical professionals to attend, or maybe the course will eventually become mandatory.

The CDC venture with Myra does not begin or end with healthcare staff and the healthcare industry. The CDC venture is but another link in the extensively developed euthanasia movement. The project goes even further with a planned resource manual for health departments. This manual will probably be similar to the materials and information provided to the National Conference of State Legislature (NCSL) the guidebook produced and distributed that provided educational materials, free of charge, to state legislators and their staffs. The guidebook on end of life initiatives may be named, “State Initiatives in End-of-Life Care: Policy Guide for State Health Departments, instead of legislators. Will their strategy be the same; removal of policy and practice barriers that impede good end of life care? What are the barriers? Who determined these barriers? Let’s learn about the barriers, before we agree and act. Will the medical field be involved in discussion and debate or to present solutions to these alleged barriers and other issues? Or is the material already compiled for dissemination within the healthcare field?

Will the CDC legislative tip sheet mentioned above be similar in nature to the Rallying Points program funded by RWJF or the Compassion Sabbath program specifically devised for clergy?

Will the key end of life contact and resource centers consist of the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast Regional Center, Myra’s Center, and Ira Byock’s Project in Missoula? Or will all Hospice facilities transform to local area resource centers? The template and dissemination plan may possibly become a federal law, taking the form of newly enacted policies and laws through the federal Health and Human Services (HHS) or the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

We will not know what is involved with the collaboration between Myra and the CDC, until the program plays out. One thing for certain, there is no involvement of any opposition experts to provide checks and balances in the push to legalize euthanasia.

There does not appear to be much direct involvement by the medical field, except in attendance, at Myra’s End of Life seminars where continuing educational credits are given as a reward. Without an opposition group, Myra’s Center and her philosophy, along with her cohorts, will continue leading us right down the path towards assisted suicide and euthanasia in this country.

The Joint Commission Resources (JCR), an affiliate of Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), was the recipient of a grant from RWJF in January 2005 for a training series for nurses and other medical staff to improve patient safety through communication. The training series is expected to be available in hospitals by the fall of 2007. Sounds like an appropriate endeavor. Time will tell when the training series is completed and we know exactly what the training sessions comprised who devised and provided the information and training. This series could be heavily influenced by previous RWJF educational projects for the healthcare field, along with Myra’s organization, favoring assisted suicide and euthanasia.

There are scores of grants to healthcare professionals, healthcare organizations, and healthcare institutions by wealthy Foundations. Many are legitimate programs that benefit medicine and public health, and all of them are not suspect with the intent to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia in the U.S.

On the other hand, some of these programs funded by these wealthy foundations may appear benign and well intentioned, but in reality condone killing in the form of assisted suicide and halting treatment on the disabled. Many share an end of life and bioethical thrust which on the surface may not appear deleterious, but with Myra in charge of advancing and influencing these programs, and given her philosophy and ties to euthanasia and Last Acts, they are more damaging than beneficial to the public and to the field of medicine.

With such an avid euthanasia movement in this country and around the world, proponents leading the charge who are closely aligned with governmental healthcare agencies, governors and state legislatures, and who are dictating public policy, along with the clergy, we should all worry and fear implementation of assisted suicide and euthanasia. Myra and other right to die advocates are already in position and have shaped public policy in health care through ventures such as those listed above for the past several years. The recent CDC partnership perpetuates their vision of legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

With Myra’s background and her achievements in advancing euthanasia, why would anyone believe euthanasia is not her goal? (To be Continued)
4-16-06