Fr0m LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

The lawsuit says Colorado’s assisted suicide law violates federal protections by allowing physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to some disabled patients under circumstances where others would be directed to mental health care

Doctors in Colorado are pushing assisted suicide on hundreds of patients solely because they suffer from eating disorders, according to a patients’ advocate sharing the harrowing story of one such case.

Writing in the Denver Post, Patient Rights Action Fund and Institute for Patient Rights executive director Matt Vallière tells the story of his friend Jane Allen, who battled anorexia “most of her life,” who in 2018 was diagnosed with “terminal anorexia,” a relatively recent diagnosis which has been criticized as overly broad and dangerous.

Her eating disorder doctor, Jane wrote, “would ‘make an exception’ for me and ‘allow’ me to die, if that was my choice. It didn’t feel like my choice – I felt coerced and spent an incredibly agonizing months in an assisted living facility.” She eventually received the suicide drugs, but was saved by her father winning a guardianship order and having the drugs destroyed.

“I ate just enough to not die right away. And then I ate more,” Jane wrote. “I weaned off the morphine and all the other hospice drugs that kept me in such a fog. I was getting better, and then I was told that I was too much of a liability and dropped from the clinic. I moved from Colorado to Oregon. I have a job that I love, a new puppy, and a great group of friends. I’m able to fuel my body to hike and do the things I love. I’m repairing my relationship with my family, and I have a great therapist who is helping me process all of this. Things obviously aren’t perfect, and I still have hard days. But I also have balance, and flexibility, and a life that is so much more than I was told would ever be possible for me.”

Jane ultimately passed away due to complications from her years of anorexia, which Vallière wonders could have been prevented by not detouring her down the terminal anorexia route. Regardless, her story details how easily similar cases can end in suicide for people without people willing to fight to give them hope. Live Action notes that last year, Colorado saw a record number of people, 510, prescribed suicide drugs solely for dietary disorders.

“What we do know is that these laws are not so rosy as the propaganda would have you believe,” Vallière writes, adding “there has been and will be more collateral damage in people like Jane or Coloradan Mary Gossman, who was told by a nationally renowned Denver eating disorder treatment facility, ‘there’s nothing we can do for you,’ which qualified her for lethal drugs under the law. She’s in a better place now and has joined as a plaintiff in a lawsuit to overturn the law. So, I ask: how many collateral deaths are acceptable to you?”

That lawsuit says that Colorado’s so-called “medical aid-in-dying” or assisted suicide law violates federal protections by allowing physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to some disabled patients under circumstances where others would be directed to mental health care, by “assum[ing] that a request for assisted suicide is not an indication of a mental disorder, when other Colorado laws make precisely the opposite assumption for virtually everyone else.”

Twelve U.S. states plus the District of Columbia allow assisted suicide. In April, however, a bill to legalize euthanasia failed in Maryland.

As Vallière has previously argued elsewhere, current euthanasia programs in the United States constitute discrimination against patients with life-threatening conditions in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as when a state will “will pay for every instance of assisted suicide” but not palliative care, “I don’t call that autonomy, I call that eugenics.”

Live Action’s Bridget Sielicki further notes that “because a paralytic is involved, a person can look peaceful, while they actually drown to death in their own bodily secretions. Experimental assisted suicide drugs have led to the ‘burning of patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain.’ Furthermore, a study in the medical journal Anaesthesia found that a third of patients took up to 30 hours to die after ingesting assisted suicide drugs, while four percent took seven days to die.”

Support is available to talk to those struggling with thoughts of ending their lives. The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988.

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Roger Foley has been pressured to consider euthanasia while being denied adequate care, prompting a new campaign to cover his medical costs and support his fight to return home.

Roger Foley, an Ontario man, has been forced to turn to charity after being denied sufficient care from hospitals which continue to push euthanasia on him.

On September 30, the Life Care Network launched a LifeFunder to cover medical costs for Roger Foley, a disabled Canadian who is struggling to receive support in an Ontario hospital which is encouraging him to end his life with Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).

“Hospital staff have repeatedly offered and pressured me to consider Canada’s infamous assisted suicide program Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) while simultaneously obstructing the very services and supports I need to live safely,” Foley revealed in a write-up for the fundraiser.

“Despite my condition, I have fought tirelessly for my rights, dignity, and the ability to return to the community,” he continued.

Foley, who is well known for speaking out against the injustice of Canada’s euthanasia regime, suffers from spinocerebellar ataxia, an incurable brain disease that makes it difficult to move.

As a result of his, he requires caregivers to assist him in eating, drinking, and getting up. According to Foley, his caregivers mistreated him while caring for him at his home. In 2016, Foley was admitted to the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) in Ontario for food poisoning and has been there ever since.

Foley revealed that over the past nine years he has repeatedly been offered MAiD despite his desire to be released from the hospital and return home with the help of caregivers.

In May, Foley began enduring even more pain when the LHSC switched out the amber lights in his room for bright bulbs. Foley, who is light sensitive, is now in so much pain that he is unable to be lifted for meals.

“I can only tolerate fluids for a few minutes at a time using makeshift taped-together ski goggles. I am unable to eat solid food or take oral medications,” Foley explained.

“I live in constant pain, severe fatigue, and cognitive decline from dehydration and lack of sleep,” he continued. “Staff continue to impose arbitrary and unsafe ‘rules,’ including denying me side rails during transfers and barging in with bright lights – despite knowing it causes me extreme harm.”

Now Foley is seeking private funding for a Personal Support Worker to assist him with feeding, medication, hydration, and basic hygiene support. Life Care Network, an organization which assists vulnerable Canadians at risk for MAiD, has intervened to raise the necessary funds for Foley’s care.

In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Lino DeFacendis, founder and CEO of Life Care Network, stressed the importance of defending Foley from a medical system which appears to prioritize ending his life with MAiD over providing proper care.

“There needs to be a re-awakening that every life is precious and must be treated with true dignity and compassion no matter how difficult the circumstance,” DeFacendis said.

“Killing oneself via MAiD is never the answer to one’s problems,” he declared.

To support Foley’s medical care, please visit his LifeFunder page.