In the media

Sunday October 23, 2011

HONOLULU STAR-ADVERTISER

Doctor says 1909 law allows assisted suicide
By Dan Nakaso

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Wednesday, October 5, 2011

NEWS MEDIA ADVISORY

Can Hawaii Physicians Already Provide Death with Dignity?

Expert Panel to Discuss

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August 11, 2011

National Public Radio
Discworld’s Terry Pratchett On Death And Deciding

THE NEW YORK TIMES

July 9, 2011

OPINION

The Good Short Life

By DUDLEY CLENDINEN

February 13, 2011

Death with Dignity issue deserves more, and better, debate

by Scott Foster

I embraced the Death With Dignity (DwD) issue 20-plus years ago via close friends on the forefront of the movement, including the late A.Q. McElrath. By the time I was 45, I had buried all of my family and the majority of my closest friends (AIDS). Watching so many long, painful debilitating deaths, I knew, when my time came, I wanted the option to terminate my life in a gentle manner should circumstances dictate. MORE

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February 13, 2011

A Matter of Life and Death

By Lee Catterall

A bill aimed at legalizing physician-assisted suicide has been shelved by the state Legislature, but the issue remains alive.

The Blue Ribbon Panel on Living with Dignity, convened in 1996 by then-Gov. Ben Cayetano, proposed the bill in 1998. Some members of that panel have discussed reconvening to address the issue, including assessment of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, which went into effect only a few months before the panel completed its work. MORE

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February 7, 2011

Doctor-assisted suicide is back before the legislature again for the first time in years

by Gina Mangieri

New group will challenge medical bodies such as the BMA that oppose any change in the law on assisted suicide

LONDON — Leading doctors who endorse assisted dying for the terminally ill will this week launch an unprecedented campaign to change the law on the right to die. Healthcare Professionals for Change, a group of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals, says it wants to challenge bodies such as the British Medical Association, which opposes any change in the law that would allow others to help terminally ill people to die. The group is the first professional body of its kind to be set up with the explicit aim of changing the 1961 Suicide Act, which forbids such assistance. MORE

Dec 14, 2009

Husband’s suicide resurrects right to die debate

By Tim Sakahara

KAILUA, HAWAI`I – Days after allegedly shooting his dying wife, in an attempt to put her out of her misery the medical examiner confirms Robert Yagi has taken his own life. Police are tight-lipped tonight on why Yagi, who was apparently suicidal, was allowed to post bail Friday and go home. View video story and transcript Here.

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Dec 14, 2009

Husband Ends His Life After Attempting to Take His Wife’s

Robert Yagi killed himself in his home after attempting to kill his ailing wife in the hospital. KITV News Video Here

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Dec 14, 2009

Kailua Case Ignites Physician-Assisted Suicide Debate

Reported by Ron Mizutani

The Honolulu Medical Examiner confirmed Monday the man who tried to kill his terminally ill wife in her hospital bed last week has committed suicide. 71-year-old Robert Yagi was found dead Sunday in his Olomana home. Autopsy results show Yagi died from asphyxiation due to hanging. Yagi was free on bail after being charged with second-degree attempted murder, for shooting his wife with a flare gun last Tuesday night at Castle Medical Center. MORE

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August 6, 2007

 

Disability rights groups, typically supportive of individual liberty, have helped defeat bills out of fear that HMOs would see a chance to cut care.

By James Ricci

Times Staff Writer

Five times in the last dozen years, bills on medically assisted suicide have risen in the California Assembly, and five times they have failed. In every instance, a great deal of the credit for their demise goes to a constituency associated with advancing personal choice and civil rights — namely, the disability rights movement. MORE

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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The Right to Assisted Suicide

By Thomas Bowden

Here’s a quiz: During the eight years Dr. Jack Kevorkian languished in a Michigan prison, how many state legislatures reformed their laws against physician-assisted suicide? Answer: none. Oregon remains the only state to have provided clear procedures by which doctors can end their dying patients’ pain and suffering while protecting themselves from criminal prosecution. MORE

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April 5, 2007

EDITORIAL

Allow assisted suicide

California’s lawmakers should pass a bill to give the terminally ill control over their lives

FOR THE THIRD YEAR straight, a bill to grant terminally ill patients control of their final days by giving them access to lethal drugs is wending its way through the Legislature. For the third year straight, opponents have weighed in on moral and religious grounds, branding assisted suicide part of a destructive culture of death. There is little that can be said to alleviate religious objections to a person being the author of his or her own death. Little, that is, except that giving people the power to end their lives does not impinge on those who would reject that power for themselves. MORE

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March 18, 2007

When Hawaii’s legislature narrowly rejected a proposal patterned after Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act five years ago, opponents warned that it would lead patients to feel obliged to die and would cause a decline in the quality end of life care. Since then, Governor Linda Lingle has opposed the measures as a “slippery slope” that would lead to numerous acts of euthanasia.

The latest data from Oregon reveals that those fears have not come about. In the decade since the law went into effect, fewer than 300 patients have chosen to end their lives by taking doctor-prescribed drugs — about one in a thousand of those diagnosed with terminal illness in that state.

Meanwhile, Oregon ranks among the nations’ best states in end of life care, as the law has raised awareness about care for the terminally ill. Physician-assisted suicide in Hawai`i was set aside last month by a house committee, and a similar bill died in the senate. Meanwhile, the issue is being debated in California, Arizona, Vermont and Washington.

NOTE: This was a lead in to the excellent article, Oregon takes stock of ‘right to die’ law, originally published in the March 12, 2007, Christian Science Monitor. Read it HERE

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January 22, 2006

Assisted-Suicide Ruling May Affect Painkiller Cases

By Marc Kaufman

Doctors who specialize in pain management and their advocates are hoping that last week’s Supreme Court decision upholding Oregon’s assisted-suicide law will boost their efforts to defend colleagues accused by the government of illegally prescribing narcotic painkillers to their patients. MORE

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2006 Supreme Court Decision Settled The State’s Rights Argument

In January of 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court again upheld the Oregon Death With Dignity law. Scott Foster, Director of Communications for the Hawai`i Death With Dignity Society said, This states’ rights decision at long last settles the matter once and for all. It is past time for theHawai`i State Legislature to act. We came within two votes of passing this law in 2000, it was killed because of religious bias and specious ‘slippery slope’ arguments, and the bill has only received two token public hearings since. There is no room in our democratic form of government for such religious bias in the legislative process.”

Every poll taken in Hawai`i in the past 10 years has demonstrated overwhelming public support regardless of political affiliation. In 2004, registered voters in Hawaii supported our proposed Death with Dignity legislation by an overwhelming 71%! Read the complete poll and research underlying data Here.

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NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

March 7, 2005

Assisted-Suicide Volunteer Asks: “Why Am I Not Dead?”

By Don Colburn

PORTLAND, OREGON – An Oregon man’s attempt at doctor-assisted suicide last month took a bizarre turn. MORE

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February 22, 2005

Oregon Assisted-Suicide Law to Get U.S. Supreme Court Scrutiny

by Greg Stohr

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider a Bush administration bid to block Oregon’s first-in-the- nation law. MORE

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March 15, 2004

EDITORIAL

Suicide bill: Weary of the post-mortems

As a death-with-dignity bill was shelved again this year, some Hawai’i lawmakers offered the excuse that physician-assisted suicide is an uncomfortable issue to take up in an election year. Heck, it’s an uncomfortable issue to take up in any year. But it has to be resolved for the sake of those terminally ill and aging Islanders who want to know whether they’ll ever have the power to end unbearable suffering. If not in Hawai’i, they may want to make other arrangements – like move to Oregon. Oregon’s assisted-suicide law allows terminally ill patients with less than six months to live to request a lethal dose of drugs after two doctors confirm the diagnosis and judge the patient mentally competent to make the request. MORE

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March 10, 2004

‘Death with dignity’ bill shelved

By Gordon Y.K. Pang and Lynda Arakawa

With election season coming, the House of Representatives rejected the controversial “death with dignity” measure that would have allowed terminally ill adults to get lethal doses of medication that would end their lives. The House Democrats sent the measure back to the Judiciary Committee.

House Judiciary Vice Chairman Blake Oshiro, D-33rd (Halawa, ‘Aiea, Pearlridge), among the main proponents, said the House members were divided and the Democrats believed it would be better to raise the issue again later, but not this session.

“People were a little uncomfortable about taking this up in an election year,” he said. MORE

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March 10, 2004

OPINION

VOLCANIC ASH

Raw issue handled with dignity

By David Shapiro

The Legislature’s handling of “death-with-dignity” bills in the past three years has been defined by the dignity with which lawmakers have addressed this emotional issue. The debate has been mostly high-minded and respectful as legislators consider whether terminally ill patients should have the right to physician assistance if they choose to end lives that have lost all quality to intolerable pain or disability.

Two years ago, the House voted to allow patients within six months of death to request lethal prescriptions under strict limitations, but the measure fell two votes short in the Senate. MORE

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March 8, 2004

EDITORIAL

Terminally ill deserve the right to choice in dying

THE ISSUE The House Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would allow physicians to assist terminally ill patients wishing to end their lives.

SIX years have passed since a blue-ribbon panel appointed by then-Gov. Ben Cayetano recommended that physician-assisted death of terminally ill patients be permitted in Hawaii. The state House approved the measure two years ago but the Senate defeated it by two votes. The Legislature is considering the proposal in the current session and should not delay its enactment yet another year. MORE

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March 5, 2004

Bill on assisted suicide advances

By Lynda Arakawa

A controversial bill allowing terminally ill patients to obtain a lethal prescription to end their lives passed the House Judiciary Committee yesterday and is headed for a full House vote.

The committee voted 10-5 to advance House Bill 862 after more than four hours of testimony that was sometimes emotional and largely divided on the issue.

But the chances of this controversial bill becoming law are unclear, particularly in an election year. MORE

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March 4, 2004

EDITORIAL

Death with dignity isn’t going away

Lawmakers don’t reintroduce a death-with-dignity measure year after year just for the fun of it. And this session is no different.

Since 1999, legislative hearings on physician-assisted suicide in Hawai’i have become increasingly filled with the terminally ill who are weary of pain and loss of control and fearful that they are overburdening the burned-out friends and relatives who take care of them. There are also several organizations that lobby strongly in favor of death with dignity. Needless to say, many of their members are elderly. MORE.

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March 3, 2004

Hearing set on “death-with-dignity” bill

By Lynda Arakawa

The House Judiciary Committee will hear a controversial bill tomorrow that would allow terminally ill patients to end their lives. House Bill 862, which carried over from last session, would allow terminally ill, competent patients to obtain a lethal dose of medication that they would take themselves. It was introduced last year by Reps. Blake Oshiro, D-33rd (Halawa, ‘Aiea, Pearlridge); Eric Hamakawa, D-3rd (Hilo, Kea’au, Mt. View); Scott Saiki, D-22nd (McCully, Pawa’a); Marcus Oshiro, D-39th (Wahiawa); and Sylvia Luke, D-26th (Punchbowl, Pacific Hts., Nu’uanu Valley). MORE

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EDITORIAL

Onstage suicide isn’t death with dignity

We back the right of terminally ill patients to die with dignity, and have urged Hawai’i to pass legislation modeled on Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide law. But our support for allowing the dying diseased to end their lives on their own terms in no way sanctions a publicity stunt by a Mainland hard-rock band to “raise awareness that physician-assisted suicide be legalized in Florida.” The Tampa-based band had planned an onstage suicide at a show at the State Theater in St. Petersburg. It claimed a terminally ill person would kill himself during the show. MORE

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Saturday, July 26, 2003

EDITORIAL

Give terminally ill option of doctor’s aid

THE ISSUE Studies show doctors are illegally prescribing lethal doses to terminally ill patients, while other patients are speeding their own deaths.

OPPONENTS of physician-assisted suicide should not be under the illusion that terminally ill patients in Hawaii are not finding ways to die with dignity, or that physicians are not helping them to do so. National surveys indicate that a significant number of doctors are honoring requests for lethal prescriptions or injections, and many patients are bringing about their own deaths by refusing to eat or drink. Hawaii’s lack of a “death with dignity” act means only that the terminally ill are denied the most humane method of bringing their suffering to an end. MORE

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Tuesday, April 29, 2003

EDITORIAL

The good, bad, ugly in Legislature’s last days While the full flavor of any legislative session cannot be known until the final gavel falls, it is possible to see the outlines of the 2003 session of the Hawai`i State Legislature. It adds up to a combination of disappointments and successes, colored throughout by a tough budget year where there simply wasn’t enough money to go around. Here’s a brief look at where we believe the Legislature is on the MORE

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Monday, March 10, 2003

EDITORIAL

Oregon not deluged with assisted suicides

A report just published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that Oregon’s five-year-old “Death with Dignity” law has not – as critics predicted – opened the floodgates to abuse. On the contrary, physician-assisted suicides accounted for just 0.1 percent of all deaths.

If families, physicians and others were using the law to goad burdensome relatives or patients to end their lives, we’d presumably be seeing much higher numbers than the following: MORE

Monday, February 24, 2003

Letters to the Editor

How to die should be a matter of choice

By Paul A. Spiers,

Chairman-elect, board of directors, The Hemlock Society & Foundation

I was impressed by Yasmin Anwar’s well-written piece on her father’s death (Focus, Feb. 16). I want to thank her for being candid about her family and her own suffering as she had to deal with this issue.

How we are to die should be a matter of personal choice, and, since I am paraplegic, access and choice are important to me every day. They certainly will be just as, if not more, important to me as my time on this Earth draws to a close. Why should what little control I have worked so hard to achieve be so completely taken away from me as I face death?

It is not for me to deny a prolonged death to those who wish to follow their own religious beliefs, but neither is it for them to deny me a hastened death when “my spirit is barely flickering in the frail shell that once was my body.”

I hope Hawai’i will soon show the way to the other states by being the first to follow Oregon. Hopefully, the citizens of this beautiful island state have spoken loudly enough in recent polls that legislators will have heard the voice of their own people over the din of negative campaigning and will vote to ensure this last, ultimate civil right.

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‘Death with dignity’ foes misrepresent its aim

By Robert A. Wilcox

Much of the voiced opposition to a “death with dignity” bill here has misrepresented both the philosophy and the specifics of such legislation. The bill “prohibits mercy killing, lethal injection and active euthanasia.” Instead, it would allow a competent and terminally ill adult the right to request a prescription for medication to hasten death when all reasonable efforts to relieve pain and suffering have proved ineffective. The Oregon experience, where assisted dying has been legal for more than five years, has identified no slippery slope of abuse of this law. Typically, those who choose this option are at the very end of their lives. They do not want their few remaining days spent tethered to tubes and wires, often unable to eat, speak or go to the bathroom themselves. To palliate pain with extremely heavy drug dosage can reduce “life” to other physical miseries that are humiliating and degrading. Death is inevitable. The ability of a terminally ill, mentally competent adult to make that decision is the ultimate civil liberty and should not be infringed upon by those who would not make that choice.

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Sunday, February 16, 2003

Difficult decisions on dying

By the time my father, Makhdum Mohammad Anwar, was moribund, his mind was so feeble that my brother, Ralph, and I were forced to play an exhausting guessing game. In his hospital room overlooking a courtyard where smokers gathered, we had to guess whether he wanted to eat or not, sleep or not, be touched or not. MORE

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Wednesday, February 13, 2003

Poll says voters support death with dignity legislation

About 71 percent of Hawai’i voters support proposed death with dignity legislation, according to a QMark Research & Polling survey. A similar QMark study a year ago showed the same level of support when the bill was first introduced, the company said. The question in the survey asked voters if they would support or oppose legislation allowing the terminally ill people with sound minds the right to have physicians assist them in dying if there were appropriate safeguards to protect against abuse. “The strong support for death with dignity in the face of very vocal and well funded opposition has not eroded in the least,” said Barbara Ankersmit, QMark president. “People in Hawai’i clearly want control over their end-of-life decisions and a full range of options to choose from, including a hastened death.” QMark polled 500 residents statewide from January 4 to February 1.

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MEDIA ADVISORY

February 12, 2003

NEW DEATH WITH DIGNITY POLL CONFIRMS GAINS

IN VOTER SUPPORT

HONOLULU – “Today’s announcement of the most recent Hawaii poll regarding Death with Dignity should come as no surprise to Hawaii’s citizens,” says Scott Foster, Communications Director for Death with Dignity Hawaii. According to the latest poll, “registered voters in Hawaii support proposed Death with Dignity legislation by an overwhelming 71%, the same high level of support found in a similar poll when the bill was introduced one year ago.” Both surveys were conducted by QMark Research & Polling of Honolulu.

Foster also said, “This poll is particularly telling as it comes only days after the end of a massive media campaign against the proposal paid for by well-funded local and mainland right-to-life organizations. Sadly, however, the right-to-life media campaign seems to have had an effect on the legislature. With time running out, no hearings are scheduled in either the House or Senate for the current bill.” Foster also said that there was no way to tell exactly how much money had been funneled into the media effort from the mainland because the state’s campaign spending laws apply only to monies contributed to influence elections and constitutional amendments.

Foster further observed, “This will be a defining year for the Hawaii Legislature on this timely issue. The Governor’s Blue-Ribbon Panel On Living and Dying supported the issue in 1998, and Death with Dignity legislation was first introduced in 1999 and came within three votes of passing during the 2002 session. Similar legislation is now being considered in Vermont and Arizona.”

The issue is supported in Hawai`i by a coalition of local organizations including the Hawai`i Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, Advocates for Consumer Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu, Free Thinkers Maui, Hemlock Society Hawai’i, Humanists Hawai’i, the Kokua Council, and Hawai’i Compassion In Dying. The effort is also supported by many members of Hawaii’s medical and legal communities.

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January 7, 2002

Son of famous admiral commits suicide with wife

NEEDHAM, Mass. — Rear Adm. Chester W. Nimitz Jr., a decorated World War II submarine veteran and only son of Navy Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, died with his wife, Joan Labern Nimitz. He was 86 and she was 89. The couple faced deteriorating health and chose to take their own lives a day after a New Year’s Day celebration with their family, said their daughter, Betsy Van Dorn. MORE

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February 07, 2011
Assisted suicide bill stalls
Emotional testimony fills a hearing on voluntary end of life
By B.J. Reyes

After citing numerous examples of loved ones who outlived a doctor’s terminal diagnosis or of their own victory over suicidal depression, opponents of a proposal to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Hawaii applauded as a Senate committee defeated the measure last night. The Senate Health Committee heard more than 4 1/2 hours of often-emotional public testimony before voting 4-0 to hold the bill in committee. MORE

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Senate panel fails to advance Death With Dignity bill

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – After listening to hours of testimony, state lawmakers decided to hold a bill that would legalize physician-assisted suicide. The vote by members of the Senate Health Committee essentially kills Senate Bill 803 relating to death with dignity. The proposed legislation would allow a terminally ill, competent adults to receive a lethal dose of medication. More than 150 people signed up to testify. The testimony was overwhelmingly against the bill, but emotions ran high on both sides. MORE

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October 9, 2010

Michael Caine: “I asked doctor to help my father die.”

Oscar-winning actor persuaded a hospital doctor to end his father’s suffering in 1955

By Damien Pearse

Sir Michael Caine has revealed how he persuaded a doctor to help his terminally ill father die. The Oscar-winning actor makes the confession in a radio interview to be broadcast today and goes on to say he agrees with voluntary euthanasia. MORE