Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Betsy McCaughey says Congress is rushing to approve legislation that will “reduce access to care, pressure the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and doom baby boomers to painful later years.”

At the core of McCaughey’s concern is comparative effectiveness research, which can be used to limit care based on a patient’s age or expected lifespan. Using such a technique to limit access to care, she says, would deny lifesaving care to elderly people and those with disabilities.

She says the legislation being pushed by the White House aims to cut costs by “reducing access to treatments and counseling seniors about cutting life short” rather than finding more reasonable solutions.

McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.

From the Los Angeles Times, Santa Barbara Independent:

An 85-year-old California man who attempted to kill his ailing wife and himself last September has avoided jail, receiving a sentence of time served plus three years probation and 100 hours of community service. His wife had Alzheimer’s disease. The pair had been married since 1944.

James Wheeler was arrested after a neighbor noticed a hose running from the tailpipe of his car into the front window of his home. Wheeler told authorities that he and his wife were in the process of committing suicide. He was charged with attempted murder and elder abuse.

Mrs. Wheeler died last November from complications of Alzheimer’s disease, in a small nursing home where she had been living since the incident. Wheeler has spent a total of seven days in jail.

Wheeler’s family and friends told officials that he had acted out of love and desperation.

Writing in the [UK] Times about the case of Dan James, Libby Purves says the public should offer assistance to those who wish to die rather than face living with a severe disability. An excerpt:

The humane creed of disability rights, with its vocabulary of challenges and being “differently abled”, may have a less helpful side-effect. It may blind us to the utter, visceral awfulness of confronting a major disability, especially when young. As civilized people we do not allow ourselves to flinch at a half-wrecked body in a wheelchair; yet the flinch and the fear are still there inside.

… we should not prattle on about fulfilling lives, Paralympians, Stephen Hawking and the rest if it makes us belittle the terror and self-disgust of a fit young person, paralyzed. No amount of pious wittering about the Disability Community should blind us to that psychological impact.

… never for a second should the rest of us take shallow comfort — or rush to condemnation — by lightly assuming that every new victim should stay the course and mutate into a cheerful paralympian or a saintly philosopher. It’s very, very hard.

See also:

Suicide law campaigner backs parents of Daniel James — [UK] Independent

Parents of Daniel James backed by moral philosopher Baroness Warnock — [UK] Telegraph

Minette Marrin, writing in the [UK] Sunday Times, draws a connection between Baroness Warnock, who said people with dementia have a “duty to die”, and Joanne Hill, who drowned her daughter because she was apparently ashamed of the girl’s cerebral palsy.

It ought to be obvious that what Warnock said and what Hill did was wrong and that one leads directly to the other. The thought is father, or rather mother, to the deed. What’s alarming is that Warnock has had official influence on public policy in such matters. All the same, I think there is room for more compassion and careful consideration in both cases.

… Having grown up close to such questions, I’ve come to realize that shame is not only natural but understandable. One feels at a deep level like a failure as a mother or father. Men often feel this much more strongly than mothers and don’t want to be associated with a damaged child. Well-adjusted people are able to put this shame behind them and I think it’s a mark of a good person in a civilized society that she or he can do so. But it may be difficult. A poorly adjusted person may find it impossible.

… None of this makes [Hill] innocent of murder, but it is ground for some compassion and understanding rather than righteous indignation. I suspect the indignation comes from an unwillingness –- an inability -– to confront the inescapable harshness of disability and the painful truth that it is indeed a burden.

See also:

Now our intellectuals think the old and frail have a ‘duty to die’, we are on the path to barbarism, op-ed by Melanie Phillips in the [UK] Sunday Mail

Do the demented have a duty to die? op-ed by Ken Connor on townhall.com. Connor is chairman of the Center for a Just Society

Sarah Wootton (left), writing in the [UK] Guardian, says British philosopher Mary Helen Warnock is wrong to say that people with dementia are a burden to society and have a “duty to die.” She says Baroness Warnock’s position provides a much-needed opportunity for society to debate this taboo subject. An excerpt:

We are all living longer and impressive medical advances mean more of us will be diagnosed with terminal illnesses as well as complex medical conditions. As a consequence, we will need to radically address the way we care for and treat people nearing the end of their lives. Essentially we’re going to have to rethink the end of life.

Sarah Wootton is chief executive for Death in Dying, which advocates for greater personal choice at the end of life.

From ABC News:

Ethicists and Alzheimer’s advocacy groups are expressing outrage over a comment made by a British philosopher this week that people with dementia have a “duty to die” to minimize the burden they place on their families and society.

Baroness Mary Helen Warnock made the remarks in an interview with the Church of Scotland’s Life and Work magazine. “If you’re demented, you’re wasting people’s lives — your family’s lives — and you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Service,” she said. The comment echoed an article titled “A Duty to Die?” that she had written for a Norwegian periodical.

“We dispute the fact that if you have dementia or some part of Alzheimer’s that you cannot have a quality lifestyle,” noted Paul Williams, director of public policy for the Assisted Living Federation of America. “We’ve seen in the last 10 years that these residents have been able to have the most independence and the quality of life that can be expected of them. … Just because you have a memory disease [doesn't mean] that we let you die and we can kill you.”

From NPR:

The health care system of the Netherlands reflects what is described as the nation’s pragmatic and stoic social attitudes about birth and death. The Netherlands has legalized euthanasia, permitting doctors to help patients die by giving them a lethal dose of medication.

“You could say it’s very much accepted by the general population that people can decide at the moment you would like to take steps to die and that you could help them,” says Paul Schnabel, a sociologist at Utrecht University.

It’s acceptable for people with painful conditions, such as cancer, to decide when they want to step out of it rather than prolong their medical treatment, he says. Ultimately, the health care system ends up saving money.