Obama: Health Care Plan Would Give Seniors Right To Choose How They Are Killed

The Onion has a great spoof article this week.  I suppose it would be even funnier, if it the plan had not actually been characterized in such ways by real people in real newspapers.  Some excerpts:

• "Let me dispel these ridiculous rumors once and for all and set the record straight: Under my plan, seniors are going to be killed the way they want to be killed, end of story," 

• "Folks' concerns over my plan are all based on bogus claims that we intend to set up death panels to kill off senior citizens," Obama said. "Well, that is preposterous. A death panel is only one of many ways we can exterminate the elderly. Under my plan, they can be beaten or poisoned to death. They can be murdered by the Marines or the Air National Guard. They can die fast or they can die slow. They can even be drowned in their own bathtubs."

• "Seniors!" House minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) said. "Run for your lives! Obama is coming to kill you! He will kill all of you!"

Betancourt v. Trinitas -- Not Dead Yet Amicus Brief

I just posted (here in PDF) the final, and largest brief submitted on behalf of plaintiff/respondent in Betancourt v. Trinitas:

BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE, NOT DEAD YET, ADAPT, CENTER FOR SELF-DETERMINATION, NATIONAL COUNCIL ON INDEPENDENT LIVING, NATIONAL SPINAL CORD INJURY ASSOCIATION, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES, and DISABILITY RIGHTS NEW JERSEY

Not Dead Yet also posts a copy of the brief at their own site.  

Dying to Live –the Journey into a Man’s Open Heart

The DVD of “Dying to Live –the journey into a man’s open heart” will have it’s national release by Passion River Films on November 10, 2009.

Please add it to your NETFLIX queue now by clicking here or ask for it to be obtained by your local film rental outlet. This will help to insure that the film will be made available to as wide an audience as possible.

Today, the conversation regarding healthcare reform is taking place everywhere throughout the country. Dying to Live puts a personal face on the inevitable issues we all face and probes deeply into an authentic realization of mortality, spousal illness, parental dependence, the end-of life and love. It’s a film you and your family will use as a catalyst towards the awareness of each other’s needs and the choices that will affect your entire life.

Legal Briefing on Medical Futility and Assisted Suicide

In the latest issue of the Journal of Clinical Ethics 20(3), I have a new article that summarizes both U.S. and international recent legal developments concerning medical futility and assisted suicide.

A second, smaller article summarizes some other recent legal developments concerning: conscience clauses, parental faith healing treatment refusals, IRB regulation, and the new Americans with Disabilities Act.

Relatedly, in a few days, at the ASBH annual conference in Washington, D.C, I will be moderating a panel session titled Legal Update 2009: The Top 10 Legal Developments in Bioethics.

Scalia - Too Many Smart People Are Lawyers

Justice Antonin Scalia says that most lawyers who appear before the U.S. Supreme Court are so brilliant that he worries they should be doing something more productive.  “I used to be disappointed that so many of the best minds in the country were being devoted to this enterprise.

“I mean there’d be a ... public defender from Podunk, you know, and this woman is really brilliant, you know. Why isn’t she out inventing the automobile or, you know, doing something productive for this society?"


“I mean lawyers, after all, don’t produce anything. They enable other people to produce and to go on with their lives efficiently and in an atmosphere of freedom. That’s important, but it doesn’t put food on the table, and there have to be other people who are doing that. And I worry that we are devoting too many of our very best minds to this enterprise.”

ABA Law Journal, WSJ Law Blog

FORWARD Newspaper on Betancourt

Rebecca Dube has a new article in FORWARD, the Jewish Daily Newspaper, linking the ongoing Betancourt litiigation to the health care reform debate.

While the health-care reform bills attract loud debate and close scrutiny, a case that’s quietly making its way through the New Jersey court system may end up having just as much impact on end-of-life medical decisions, and Jewish groups are weighing in on it.

The case concerns the fate of Ruben Betancourt, a 73-year-old man who was admitted to Trinitas Hospital in Elizabeth, N.J., last year with kidney failure. He had been in and out of several treatment centers and a nursing home after suffering complications from cancer surgery, and he was dependent on a ventilator, dialysis and a feeding tube.

Trinitas Hospital wanted to take Betancourt off the ventilator, and his family wanted to keep him alive. A New Jersey superior court judge ruled that Betancourt’s daughter, Jacqueline, had the right to make decisions for her father and that the hospital shouldn’t be allowed to overrule her. The hospital appealed; in the meantime, Betancourt has died (while on the ventilator), but the appeal may still go forward because the issues raised could potentially set a precedent for other end-of-life cases.

The case is drawing national attention because it’s being framed as a conflict between patients’ rights to determine their own care versus doctors’ rights to refuse treatment that they believe is inappropriate or even inhumane. In Betancourt’s case, the hospital contended that Betancourt was “actively dying,” suffering from bed sores and infections. But his family members reported that he responded to their voices, and said that he had always been a fighter and would want to keep living for as long as he could. The question for the court was, essentially, who should decide when to pull the plug, the family or the doctors? New Jersey courts so far have sided with the family, but because the case has potential to set precedent on appeal, legal experts are following it closely. . . .

Two Orthodox groups, Agudath Israel and the Rabbinical Council of America, recently filed friend-of-the-court briefs to support the family’s position.

“It really comes down to patient autonomy versus medical authority, and who makes these decisions,” Agudath spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran explained. His organization distributes and encourages its ultra-Orthodox members to complete halachic living wills, specifying the sort of medical care they want and designating a rabbi as their representative if they’re incapacitated. The halachic answer isn’t always to continue life support or pursue extreme measures to keep someone alive, Shafran said, but the important thing is that patients’ wishes are respected. So far, the public debate around end-of-life care has spurred only a slight uptick in demand for halachic living wills, he said.

But end-of-life care is something that both politicians and ordinary individuals should think more about, Shafran said, especially as it relates to religious convictions.

“There should be a respect of deeply held religious beliefs with regard to life and death,” Shafran said. “This is a very fundamental religious right, the right to stay alive.”