Originally Posted - June 4, 2006

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Myra Christopher's activism in support of assisted suicide and euthanasia has been instrumental in the policy changes toward legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia. Changes have been through educational programs directed toward healthcare givers and healthcare systems, government, the media, and the clergy, all which leads to public policy changes. Myra has spent more than 20 years to achieve that goal through her collaboration with the Last Acts and other right to die groups favoring euthanasia.

Myra's affiliations with right to die groups also extend to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), established in 1978, advocates for the rights of terminally ill Americans, including care and support. NHPCO is the largest, nonprofit membership organization devoted exclusively to the promotion of hospice care in America. In addition to providing informational and educational materials to members, NHPCO provides information and referrals to the public.

However, the NHPCO has evolved since their inception, and not all hospice facilities subscribe to the same philosophy they originally were created to address. For those recently involved with hospice, you know some of their organizations offer excellent referrals and care facilities for not just the dying and terminally ill, but those elders who are transitioning from independence to dependence due to the state of their medical health, those who need assisted living facilities, and even short term rehabilitation such as physical therapy status post a stroke or hip fracture. Some of these changes are not detrimental to the health and medical care of the elderly, the disabled, or the dying, and additionally offer aid of various forms to the families involved.

The concerns and problems arise when the elderly population enters some of these facilities, and then rapidly deteriorate for unexplained reasons or suddenly end up dead. When the philosophy of some of the hospice centers and staff are focused around quality, burdensome, futile, and other disparaging titles and terms, then the elderly, the disabled, and the brain injured are at risk of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

One of the most commonly prescribed drugs in Hospice is Morphine. Morphine is a potent narcotic which affects the respiratory center and shall be described in future.

NHPCO Board of Directors for 2006, includes Mary Labyak, who is also affiliated with the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, the same hospice where Terri Schiavo was housed for several years, before her food and fluids were halted to cause her death. Several other "right to die" proponents are listed under the board directors in various functions. Labyak from the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast also serves as national director and treasurer. http://www.nhpco.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3291&openpage=3291

The same Mary Labyak slated to attend a symposium at UPENN on end of life in May of 2006, along with Judge Greer of the Terri Schiavo case, Dr. Ronald Cranford of the Terri Schiavo case and numerous other cases involving feeding tube controversy, Jay Wolfson of the Terri Schiavo case, Art Caplan, the bioethicist at UPENN, Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband who had her feeding tube successfully removed to cause her death, and other euthanasia proponents. The topic was Terri Schiavo, of course. There were no speakers for oppositional views, so there was no balanced information coming out of that affair, but rather a totally biased and opinionated conference on end of life that encompasses assisted suicide and euthanasia.

This is the direction we have been taken by euthanasia activists over the past several years. You can be assured, this is not good medicine. These activists have essentially changed our moral code.

These conferences are nothing but a public display to convince and show citizens that this treatment, or the lack thereof, causing euthanasia by assisted suicide, is morally acceptable, normal, and mainstream view. To the contrary, there is nothing morally correct with euthanizing or assisting anyone to kill themselves or each other as an end of life or dying wish. There is nothing normal about the acts. The mainstream view or that which the euthanasia proponents want you to acknowledge and accept is not mainstream views, rather, the public is ill informed, misinformed, complacent, and unbiased analyses is non-existent.

As well, when the apathetic and complacent among us listen to the euthanasia proponents long enough, and then believe their statements and comments as fact, without ever questioning, without ever considering the morality of the acts, and often, without even caring, until we are forced to deal with the same or similar situation in our own lives, our concerns, thoughts and voices are totally ignored and stifled. This constant harping through the media, through the clergy, and through the government is nothing short of psychological operations or brainwashing. Some call it social engineering. The fact is, when one hears something often enough, they believe it as fact, even if there is no substance to it.

In November 2004, Katherine Brandt, vice president with National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, sent a memo about a new consumer outreach initiative explaining their programs would be funded under a Robert Wood Johnson grant. She states, "The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization is working with partners at the national, state and local level to act as a catalyst and architect for social change to improve end-of-life care."

Rallying Points Regional Resource Centers began transitioning their work to NHPCO in 2004. A diversity toolkit was released in 2005. Educational aids and materials are available from any organization who subscribes to the end of life ideology. There is also a database, much like an internet library, which deals strictly with end of life issues; however, assisted suicide and euthanasia are not presented as such.

Under the NHPCO is the EDELE Project.

In November, 2005, less than eight months ago, NHPCO issued a press release which stated that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported the need for more and better data about care at the end of life. In response to this need, The Carolinas Center for Hospice and End of Life Care and The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization collaboratively worked on the project, a Web site, which offered access to information about care of the dying and other factors affecting end of life care. www.edeledata.org

The Web site, the EDELE (Epidemiology of Dying and End-of-Life Experience) Project, was funded by a grant from the U.S. Administration on Aging. The EDELE Project funding was granted to The Carolinas Center for Hospice and End of Life Care. There are four phases of this project, with one launched in 2005 offering end of life information on North and South Carolina. The web site claims these two states are a model for dying and end of life issues. Limited information is offered for other states. Phase two consists of adding state and national information, and is currently in progress. Phase three and four is projected to offer database and literature information on the Internet. While some information is currently accessible, you are encouraged to sign in and create a profile.

The EDELE framework model can be viewed at the following URL: http://www.edeledata.org/search/EDELE_Framework.pdf

EDELE project advisory board members include Myra Christopher, along with several others. Melanie P. Merriman, PhD, MBA, with Touchstone Consulting in North Bay Village, Florida, is also listed as an advisory board member and EDELE Project Director. This consulting firm received $734,960 from RWJF from 2000 to 2002 as part of the C-SP program. Merriman's Touchstone Consulting firm assisted in a Florida Hospice Study with a report to the legislature for the 2002 session. The project goal: expand Hospice utilization among Medicaid patients with a "life limiting illness" while reducing expenditures in the state Medicaid program via cost saving treatments. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/042506MyraChristopher2.html

Congressman David Price (Chapel Hill, NC) was responsible for the Federal appropriations which supported the EDELE Project.

Americans have become a self determination society of rights issues by virtue of establishing the end of life concept within medicine as medical treatment; convincing the clergy that some types of euthanasia are merciful, lawful, legal, and your God given right; convincing the government that some types of euthanasia are within the realm of medicine, and then changing laws to enhance and accommodate the self determination concept; teaching the media that Americans have "rights" and this entails killing oneself or each other by assisted suicide if necessary; and teaching and changing public views and sentiment by the media, the clergy, physicians and the medical field, and legislative laws.

Having large foundations funding the end of life doctrine, having passed right to die laws, having bioethicists involved in advocating for assisted suicide at the end of life under pretense of quality, burden, and futile, and having developed the mantra: That because people are dying in pain and want to die with a physicians help, or who wants to live like that, then assisted suicide and euthanasia must be legal and will be good for America; these actions, and more, have all contributed toward legalization of euthanasia in the United States.

Physician assisted suicide and euthanasia may appear as compassionate, merciful acts on the surface, while euthanasia proponents try to convince you this is so, but in reality these acts are the abandonment of patients during their most vulnerable period in life. 6-04-06