A chat with Death with Dignity

Since saturday April 16th was National Healthcare Decisions Day, I thought I'd speak with Melissa Barber from Death with Dignity.

What is Death with Dignity?

Our organization provides information, education, research and support for the preservation, implementation and promotion of Death with Dignity laws which allow a terminally ill, mentally competent adult the right to request and receive a prescription to hasten death under certain specific safeguards. We promote Death with Dignity laws based on our model legislation, the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, as a stimulus to nationwide improvements in end-of-life care and as an option for dying individuals.

Our most recent success was when the voters of Washington state passed the second such US law in 2008. We led the effort, helped write the law, and laid the groundwork necessary for this successful campaign.

What is the biggest misconception about Death with Dignity?

Probably the biggest misconception about Death with Dignity has to do with terminology and what is and isn't allowed under the Oregon and Washington laws.

What we advocate for:
Death with Dignity/Physician-Assisted Death: Under the Oregon and Washington Death with Dignity Acts, terminally ill patients who are mentally competent to make their own medical care decisions may request a prescription of medication to hasten their deaths. These patients must also be able to self-administer and ingest the medication.

What we don't advocate for:
* "Assisted Suicide" more accurately refers to criminals like William Francis Melchert-Dinkel.
* "Suicide" is also inaccurate. A terminally ill patient making a request under the Oregon or Washington law is doing so to hasten an already inevitable and imminent death; therefore, the act cannot properly be equated with suicide. None of the moral, existential, or religious connotations of "suicide" apply when the patient's primary objective is not to end an otherwise open-ended span of life but to find dignity in an already impending exit from this world. Individuals who use the law may be offended by the use of "assisted suicide," because they are participating in an act to short the agony of their final hours, not killing themselves. It is the cancer (or other underlying condition) which is killing them.
* Euthanasia often refers to the act of painlessly but deliberately causing the death of another who is suffering from an incurable, painful disease or condition. It is commonly thought of as lethal injection.

I know with hospice, or at least the hospice program I volunteered for, a patient has to be given 6 months or less to enter hospice care.  What about Death with Dignity?  At what point is a person legally able to make this decision?

In order to make a request for medication under the Oregon and Washington Death with Dignity Acts, the patient must have received a terminal diagnosis with six months or fewer to live.

Are there any other states considering this legislation?

In December 2009, Montana's Supreme Court ruled there was nothing in the state law which prohibited a physician from honoring his or her terminally ill, mentally competent patient's request by prescribing medication to hasten the patient's death. During this year's legislative session, three bills were introduced in Montana regarding Death with Dignity. One, modeled on the Oregon and Washington laws would have codified the Supreme Court ruling and outlined in which circumstances the medication could be prescribed. The other two were aimed at overturning the court's ruling. All three bills failed to pass. Physician-assisted death is still legal in Montana, but the state doesn't currently have a standard of practice for physicians to follow regarding their patients' requests. I believe they'll try to codify the state's Supreme Court ruling the next chance they get in the legislature.

After careful research and polling, we've found the next likely state to pass a Death with Dignity law will be in New England, and that's where we're currently focusing our efforts. Right now, we're working with a grassroots group in Vermont to enact a law through the state's legislative process.

You can also see other legislative efforts related to end-of-life care on our site: http://www.deathwithdignity.org/advocates/national/

Okay readers, I would like to hear what you think.  It's never too early to begin this conversation.  As an FYI, HBO will air “How to Die in Oregon” on May 26^th at 8pm.  This award winning documentary has been on my must see list for months and I plan to watch it.  It would be really cool if we could all watch and discuss the following day.  Who's with me?

April is Donate Life Month

I've talked about organ donation on this blog before, but this time it is personal.  I've always been an organ donor.  Whenever I've gone to the DMV, I indicate my intentions on my driver's license.  I've also told my family this fact because if I'm dead, I won't be around to say, "Hey, can you make sure that someone gets my eyes, my liver, my skin or maybe my heart?"

But, according to statistics, not a lot of people are organ donors, especially in Texas, and I'm wondering why?  Does it have to do with the whole, if I bury my head in the sand and not think about death, it won't happen to me mentality? Are people afraid to make that committment because of a superstitious fear that they're inviting the Grim Reaper into their lives by planning for their end of life wishes?  Or do people fear that they won't receive the best care in the emergency room if they're a donor?  I found the following information on the Texas Organ Sharing page to answer some of those fears.

• Emergency room doctors are there to save lives and will do everything possible to save one’s life.
• One’s celebrity or financial status does not play a part in the decision. Organs are allocated based on a variety of medical and logistical factors including blood type, size of organ needed, waiting time, distance between donor and recipient, degree of immune system match and medical urgency, among others.
• All major religions, including Catholicism, support organ and tissue donation as one of the highest expressions of compassion and generosity. Pope Benedict has stated that to give one’s organs means to give expression to a true, deep act of love for one’s neighbor.
• Donation does not interfere with funeral arrangements. A donor can have an open casket funeral.
• Anyone can be a potential donor, regardless of age or medical history. The good news is that a single donor can save or improve the lives of more than 50 people.

I know death is a super personal issue, but I'm writing about it because I think it's time we all started thinking and talking about it.  Death and taxes, people.  Which of these inevitable aspects of life would you rather discuss? 

So, here's the dealio.  I'd like for you to be brave and discuss right here on my blog your thoughts about organ donation.  If you don't feel comfortable, simply vote in my poll.  But, I'm hoping we can get a discussion going.  This issue might not be of importance to you right now so you're not thinking about it. But it might be when you least expect it.

I know when we think of charity, we think of dropping a buck or two into the Salvation Army bucket during the holidays or sending a check to our favorite cause, but organ donation is free.  We're all going to die at some point, so why not give the ultimate gift of life?

Thoughts?

And the Winner is...

Chernoblog!
Thanks to everyone who posted on my blog. You rock! 
I wrote all your names down on a piece of paper, crumpled them up and let my son draw a name from his Nasa hat. 

And the second winner is Life.  9 voted for Life and 5 for Death.  (That's according to my informal poll.) Thanks also to the peeps who voted there.

Have a great Sunday!

Contest-a-palooza!

Hey boys and girls! Step right up and don't be shy.  If you post a comment on my blog this week, I will enter your name into a hat and on Sunday, I will draw one lucky person's name to win a signed copy of Creative Nonfiction's Issue 33-Silence Kills. 

Thanks for stopping by!

It Rhymes with Breath, as in Last

I totally agree with this post by Peggy Bird on Open Salon, when she states that death is the last taboo of American culture.  Heck, sex is all over the place.  You just have to watch a news report on Charlie Sheen and there's prostitutes, drugs and violence all rolled into one overpaid, overcelebrated mess of a man.  And we eat this stuff up.  Don't believe me? Snooki from The Jersey Shore was paid $32,000 buckaroonees to speak at Rutgers.  Her words of wisdom to the college crowd?  Study hard, but party harder. Wow, her parents must be so proud.

Okay, I digress, which I'm prone to do.  Sorry.  Back to death.

I've noticed that when I speak of my manuscript, people will lower their voices as if we are engaging in an illicit conversation.  For some, there may be a superstitious fear that if they acknowledge death, that it will find them.  I used to belong to this group.  If I don't think about it, perhaps it will just go away.  Well, we all know that that's not really an option.

But, avoiding those that are dying is fairly easy to do.  For most people, death occurs in a hospital or an assisted living facility, although there is a growing resurgence of people opting to spend their last days at home.  Unless you work in one of those facilities, you don't face it.  If it happens to someone you know and love, of course you are touched by it and you have to face the truth that most of us would rather deny.  Death happens.  It happens to old people, young people, mothers, fathers, children, pets, sisters, brothers, everybody.  It even happens to people we don't particularly like.

Which brings me to people who happen to be on death row.  If anyone's death is kept behind closed doors and hidden from the public, it is the men and women who are facing execution by the government.  It's easy not to think about executions.  Why?

Because it happens to other people, not to good people like us. 
Those people are getting what they deserve. It's justice.
I don't have time.
I don't want to think about it.
I don't know enough to join the discussion.

But the truth of the matter is, innocent people have been executed.  And yes, so have not so innocent people.  But my question to you dear reader is this, if our culture can't openly discuss death without lowering our voices or running away in fear, how can we allow our government to dole out death sentences and carry out that punishment when the average citizen can't even talk about death in general?

I encourage everyone to engage in this conversation.  State sanctioned killing is a big issue and the more you learn about it, the more confusing it becomes, but in my opinion, it's something we should all be talking about.

The Cush Life of a Death Row Inmate

Now that I've been blogging and commenting on the Dallas Morning News' Death Penalty Blog, I have been doing a lot of research on the internet and in person to see how people formulate their opinions on this issue.  And this is a pretty big issue, but I don't think your average everyday citizen has given it much thought.  It's kind of like you wouldn't think about the safety of child car seats if you didn't have a child.  Most people confront this issue when it becomes personal.  For me, it was meeting Khristian Oliver and you can read all about my experience with him when my essay Surrender appears in Ten Spurs out of UNT this summer.  Or you can read older posts on this here blog.

Anyway, let's move on.

Instead of a sentence of death, I'm all for Life Without Parole as the option for the most heinous crimes.  From what I learned at the Alternative Spring Break, the death penalty is three times more expensive than lifetime incarceration in a maximum security prison.  So, what's the problem then?  Why do certain people still want to kill people who have killed people to deter people from killing more people?  Do people really think that life in prison is some sort of spa?  I saw a laughably bad interview on Fox News from a lawyer who got a tour of death row and he saw an inmate "sleeping like a baby" with a Hershey's bar on his desk.  The man couldn't believe that this person had access to chocolate.  It was his belief that we are supposed to be PUNISHING these people, so why are they allowed to sleep and eat candy bars?  Well, I don't know about you, but spending 23 hours a day in a tiny cell doesn't sound all that fun. In fact, it might induce depression which could lead to sleep, but that's just the human in me saying that.

So, if you are interested in seeing the living conditions of a Texas death row inmate, here's a great blog written by none other than a death row inmate named Thomas Whitaker.  And no, he doesn't have a camera and internet access.  He does it all through letters written the old fashioned way and the photos were provided via the Freedom of Information Act.

And just so you know, they don't hand out sleep number mattresses, down pillows or candy bars to the inmates.  They are allowed to purchase items from the commissary.  That is if they have money placed on their books by a friend or a family member.  Many don't.  I know, I know.  It serves them right. 

Anyway, I just thought I'd give you a little behind the scenes look at Texas' death row.