Assisted suicide charge dropped against Pa. woman
Source: AP
A Pennsylvania judge threw out an assisted suicide charge Tuesday against a nurse accused of handing her 93-year-old terminally ill father a bottle of morphine, a decision that brought elation and relief to the defendant and her family one year to the day after his death.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office failed to prove a crime occurred and based its case against Barbara Mancini on speculation and guesswork, Schuylkill County Judge Jacqueline L. Russell said in a 47-page opinion.
"Needless to say, we're all just elated and very happy and very redeemed," her husband, Joe Mancini, told The Associated Press. "Now is the time to heal."
Mancini, 57, of Philadelphia, was charged last summer with giving a nearly full bottle of morphine to her father, Joseph Yourshaw, at his Pottsville home in February 2013 for the purpose of helping him end his life. Yourshaw died at a hospital four days later after a hospice nurse called 911.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/assisted-suicide-charge-dropped-against-pa-woman
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AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)assisted suicide laws.
After all, he's all hopey-changey right?
One can be opposed to it personally, or to tell followers it's not ok, without spending millions lobbying against it as a viable, safe, humane medical choice for non-believers.
rug
(82,333 posts)If somebody posted a recipe about spaghetti I wouldn't be surprised to hear you complain about the Pope.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I'd be pretty pissed if they did.
Top opposition to I-1000 in Washington State:
Connecticut Knights of Columbus: $250,000
Knights of Columbus: $75,250
Washington State Catholic Conference: $70,394
Archdiocese of Seattle: $55,000
Catholic Health Association: $50,000
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: $30,000
That's one state, one year, one initiative.
The catholic church has as much business telling me when and how I can end MY LIFE as it does telling a woman whether she can choose to carry a child to term or not.
Which is to say, no fucking business at all.
rug
(82,333 posts)Let's see what you do with this.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)In Massachusetts, Question 2 went down by a 1% margin. Top donors for the opposition? Birds of a feather:
"The committee also has received large donations from several Catholic organizations, including $200,000 from the Knights of Columbus, and tens of thousands in donations from about two dozen Catholic dioceses from across the country."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/09/14/mass-critics-suicide-question-return/e8UgFXEVHab0huV4ausVPP/story.html
Top donors. That is, of course, AFTER returning the donation from the misogynistic anti-gay conservative American Family Association.
What that nurse did, shouldn't have been illegal. You know full well that is my point.
rug
(82,333 posts)In your monomania against all things Catholic, you fail to see anything else.
For one thing, this is in Pennsylvania, not Washington. In fact this is three counties over from me.
For another thing, it is not the Catholic plot you revel in. There are many groups and many reasons to oppose euthanasia. Here's one.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/8887#.UvrQJU2Ybwo
Finally, this case is purely about criminal law and a deficient prima facie case. It is hardly a referendum on assisted suicide. Had a few facts been different, this judge would just as blithely allowed the case to proceed.
So don't give me any bullshit about deflecting. Turning any topic into a pope fest is the depth of deflection. It would be refreshing to hear from you some thoughts that do not have the predictable path of a wind-up car.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I have repeatedly pointed out across multiple threads, I take issue with the church on issues that conflict with my values on gender, marriage, reproductive freedom, and similar issues. I don't give a shit about the church otherwise. I object to the church doctrine/dogma where it leads the church leadership itself, and followers, to lobby, and otherwise work to curtail MY rights and the rights of others. Again, I don't care if the church says abortion is bad, and therefore members don't have them, or euthanasia is bad, so members don't do it, etc. I care where the church works to pass legislation that PREVENTS me and mine, and other free people from exercising their RIGHTS.
So that was a wildly false characterization of my position you just dropped there.
"For one thing, this is in Pennsylvania, not Washington. In fact this is three counties over from me."
This issue has come up state by state across multiple states. Yes, I live in Washington, where we finally overran the RCC and its opposition to this medical, safe, humane option. I am not the sort of person that goes 'got mine, fuck you'. I care about the rights of other humans. So that includes the fight for physician assisted suicide (and other issues) in Canada and the UK as well. Do not pretend I need a geography lesson.
"Finally, this case is purely about criminal law and a deficient prima facie case."
Wherein a compassionate person did the humane thing, in spite of laws that prevent the sort of humane act any of us might offer a suffering and dying animal of any other species, because entities like the RCC bankroll, campaign, lobby and otherwise work to impose such laws in 'concern' for a metaphysical hypothesis it can't even prove exists (the human soul, and its disposition in the case of suicide).
"For another thing, it is not the Catholic plot you revel in."
The RCC is, nationwide, CLEARLY leading the fight to KEEP this sort of compassion fully illegal. And you know it. I've already provided plenty of evidence even in just this thread. Whether dollars from entities, or openly catholic individuals, far and away they lead the charge on this issue. Protestants tend to vote/poll near the same numbers, but they do not lobby or spend on a level even approaching that of the RCC. Not by a country mile. And you damn well know it.
There are many groups and many reasons to oppose euthanasia. Here's one.
Never said there weren't. Never said the catholic church was the only entity involved in this. Numerically at the polls, and in dollars spent in opposition, however, the RCC is clearly the supreme ringleader of the effort. By a lot. By MANY millions of dollars. And not just in the US, they are so, worldwide. And you damn well know it. Moreover, you KNOW that I am fully aware there are other groups interested in the same position on this issue, and their numerical relevance. Again, numbers, both in the form of votes and dollars, are relevant to my point. You can find similar props to trot out on the abortion issue (with complete overlap in some cases), and no, I am not interested.
"It is hardly a referendum on assisted suicide."
Never said it was. But it is entirely topical to bring up a primary reason it is a crime AT ALL.
"Had a few facts been different, this judge would just as blithely allowed the case to proceed."
And if wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak. If not for primarily entities like the RCC, this act wouldn't have had to be carried out by a nurse, on the side, under cover of anonymity. It would be a legal option, administered by a doctor, with controls that address multiple potential issues. But no, thanks to the efforts of entities like the RCC (and primarily that specific entity) here we have the equivalent of a back room abortion, maybe well done, maybe not, maybe legit, maybe not. Bang up job there.
The RCC is so slimy their previous figurehead rated abortion and euthanasia as a bigger problem than WAR or the death penalty. That's fully morally bankrupt, and disgusting. How such an entity gets so much positive press on a progressive/democratic site, is utterly beyond me.
"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion."
"While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."
There's the previous pope's position. There you have it. Physician assisted suicide, worse than WAR. That's sick. A self important mammal assuming the authority to work to CURTAIL MY RIGHTS. Not on my watch.
Pope Francis has likened it to human sacrifices, and has spoken about denying communion to any catholic who supports abortion or euthanasia. So, to hell with him too, maybe the next one will be 'better'?
enough
(13,254 posts)Sounds as if the family will continue to pay the price.
snip from the article>
Barbara Mancini, who has been on unpaid leave from her nursing job, incurred more than $100,000 in legal fees. Compassion & Choices said Tuesday its legal defense fund has raised $20,000 to help defray the cost, while Joe Mancini had taken on extra paramedic shifts to help supplement the family's income.
snip>
This issue is going to become ever more important, and I hope this decision points the way to a sane and compassionate outcome.
Thanks for posting this.
QuestForSense
(653 posts)The decision certainly serves the public interest:
'This case demonstrates that the government has no business interfering in families' end-of-life decisions,' said Compassion & Choices Chief Program Officer Mickey MacIntyre. 'This prosecution could have chilled end-of-life decisions and pain care for millions of future terminally ill patients who simply want to die at home, peacefully and with dignity.'
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/assisted-suicide-charge-dropped-against-pa-woman
happyslug
(14,779 posts)The biggest problem with end of the life situations is that doctors do NOT want to prescribe morphine (Still the best pain reliever) for fears they be accused of selling narcotics. Thus patients linger in pain do fears of their doctors from losing their licenses if they give to much pain medications.
One Catholic Nurse, who oppose assistant suicide, noted that the problem is that doctors refuse to give enough pain medication. If enough pain medication is given the pain can be relived and people die peacefully.
In my own practice of Law and Social Security I see the result of this, people in pain do to their doctors refusing to increase pain medications levels do to the doctor's fear they would lose their license if they give to much pain medications.
I remember in the 1990s a research paper talking about how people died in 1911 and in the 1990s and the reports from 1911 was that patients died not in pain but with family members around them. In the 1990s they died in pain and alone. Why? First families have moved away from where their parents live but as to pain 1911 was the last year you could go to the drug store and buy morphine over the counter. Thus family members could drug up their elderly relatives to an extent no doctor will do today.
Lets get honest, the problem is NOT the need for a law permitting assistant suicide, but the right of every patient to have max doses of pain relief without the Federal Government second guessing the doctor as to the level of pain relief being given.
In this case, the nurse giving the medication seems to have given more and more pain medication to relieve pain. She appears to have talked about helping her father died, but they was no evidence that shows she did anything more then relive pain as she was trained to do. Thus all she did is relieve pain.
In cases like this I like to remember how George Washington died. His four doctors took a pint out of him. I have seen people say that was medical malpractice, but once you understand that at that time period, before the injection needle, the best pain relief was to bleed someone. Less blood in the system, pain went down. Thus if the doctor's removed blood from George Washington to relieve pain, that was they job. People forget the medical community has two jobs, first is to cure people, the other is to minimize pain or to ease someone who is dying. It appears the later is why the doctors each took a pint of blood, not to kill Washington, but to ease his pain.
Side note: The hypodermic needle permitted direct injection of morphine into the blood system. The invention of the Hypodermic needle in the 1830s is the reason bleeding died out as a medical treatment by the time of the US Civil War (Through English doctors continued to use it through WWII when it came to viral infections, it seems to have some effect in such cases). Smoking opium does not seem to have the same level of pain relief as bleeding did, but injection of opium permitted even greater levels of pain relief.
I bring this up, for pain relief is what most people who are dying need more then suicide, but when pain relief is denied suicide appears to them as the only way to treat the pain.
In this case, it appears that is all the Nurse tried to do, relieve the pain and what did she get out of it? A criminal indictment. Thus that will tell other medical providers not to provide pain relief, or they face criminal charges.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)"Lets get honest, the problem is NOT the need for a law permitting assistant suicide, but the right of every patient to have max doses of pain relief without the Federal Government second guessing the doctor as to the level of pain relief being given."
Morphine and other pain meds have ancillary effects, such as modifying blood pressure. Some levels of pain are so high, administering sufficient doses of morphine hastens death all on its own via overdose. Nevermind the mental effects of such narcotics.
Have you ever held the hand of a broken, drooling, shell of a crippled human on sufficient doses of morphine to block pain from bone and lung cancer, for the last few hours of that person's life? MONTHS after that person chose, but could not legally access physician assisted suicide?
Humans on a glide path to death deserve better. Doping them up when they would freely choose a more dignified end is inhumane.
sybylla
(8,495 posts)My MIL just died in August and spent her final days writhing in a hospital bed, ripping off her clothes in some pain induced delirium to get more comfortable, shouting at her family who were there trying to comfort her when they would cover her back up.
She would have chosen more pain meds for the final three days of her life. That's what hospitals are supposed to do - make people who are in misery more comfortable. At least that's what we all think they are supposed to do.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Possible Happyslug is in no way aware of it even. Saying it's about pain control not euthanasia is like saying 'IVF limitations on embryo storage/disposal is not related to abortion'. Except it is. Many issues stem from one point. The overarching issue isn't actually abortion either, it's Reproductive Freedom. Efforts to stymie abortion in one area, have secondary effects in subjects like IVF, or life-saving medical care for mothers in the case of late term miscarriage. One of the last 4 doctors in the country that would perform late term abortion was murdered for it. The mis-portrayal of such abortions as matters of lifestyle convenience fed into that. Women's health is in serious jeopardy over this, and the issue is much broader than just abortion. So it's important to fix the context, for abortion, it's really Reproductive Freedom. For this issue, it's control over End of Life. Pain management is in some cases, a victim of the anti-euthanasia movement. Calling what you or I, or even Happyslug would probably call palliative care; 'Backdoor Euthanasia'. You can really see the nuts and bolts of this issue in the UK right now. Many factors have come together, like their NHS paying for Liverpool 'Pathway' care. The nature of their NHS system and individuals claiming objection based on their perceived culpability as part of that system, the House of Lords chock full of Bishops, etc. Here it's harder to see, but there, the knives have really come out over this issue. You don't even have to look hard to find people in the anti-euthanasia movement that regard suffering as a positive gift from god. Yikes.
My uncle has yelled 'morphine killer' at my mom many a time, for the passing of my father. Nevermind that his sister and hospice are the only people who administered anything to him. (And my uncle is my mom's sister, not my father's blood relative, and in fact they hated each other) The issue with care workers, doctors or hospice, not administering sufficient pain suppressants is far more nuanced than fear of being accused of selling narcotics. That might be a fear, in some cases, but it is far from universal, and not a valid dismissal of the overall issue. Happyslug may not have meant that post as a dismissal of end of life control, but that's what it says, because all of these issues, from palliative care, to quality of life, to self-euthanasia, are all linked, and people are using one issue against another to hedge and gain ground.
End of life control/decisions. Saying euthanasia is off the table most certainly reduces the choices available to patients. It alters the nature of the care they might get, as care workers try to protect themselves from accusations or liability in the case of perceived soft, or passive euthanasia.
It's possible the subject of the OP's story did not choose euthanasia, but the debate on this issue still influenced the case. Because of people like my uncle, that view palliative use of morphine as a 'soft euthanasia'. As long as things like the actions of the nurse in the OP's story are suspect, we have a problem.
"She would have chosen more pain meds for the final three days of her life. That's what hospitals are supposed to do - make people who are in misery more comfortable. At least that's what we all think they are supposed to do. "
Who is 'we all'? I, and many, many others disagree with you here. I don't want to be 'comfortable' at the cost of my faculties. If I go into a hospital with an issue that warrants such glide path care, it's going to be because I didn't know, at the time I went in, that the condition couldn't be repaired. When I get to the point that my mind is going to degrade (my family has a high propensity for things like Alzheimer's) or the pain is rising, and not going away, requiring ever increasing narcotics to control, that's it. I'm done. I want out. I'm not scared of the pain, I want my dignity, I want my free will, my mind, intact when I choose how to meet my end. I might, on good conscience and fee will, ask for assistance in that. The hospital shouldn't be barred by law from aiding me, if it is within their moral scope to do so. (I would not compel a conscientious objector to aid me in suicide. That would be just as unfair as people legislating away my right to end myself.)
With proper recognition of the individual's right to end of life decisions, you can indeed see better palliative care for people like your MIL, without fear of accusations of euthanasia. And people like me can choose to die on our terms, as we see fit.
Currently, in this state, I am free for that. Most of the country is not. The case in the OP is a secondary effect of that issue.
markpkessinger
(8,392 posts). . . it is what hospices and at-home hospice programs are supposed to do.
markpkessinger
(8,392 posts)Last edited Thu Feb 13, 2014, 12:11 AM - Edit history (1)
You write:
I bring this up, for pain relief is what most people who are dying need more then suicide, but when pain relief is denied suicide appears to them as the only way to treat the pain.
Who are you -- indeed, who is any one of us -- to make a determination for a dying person about whether pain relief is the thing he or she 'needs' more than suicide? At a certain point, when all hope for a cure has been exhausted and the patient is simply waiting to die, some are simply tired and want to get on with it, even if pain relief is available. Why should they not have that option, and who are you to tell them they shouldn't?
The real problem, it seems to me, is less about what dying people, as a class, need or don't need, and more about what a dying patient wants or doesn't want. Rather than assume there is a single solution, if you really want give dying people a measure of dignity. give them greater choice on the question of when and how their lives will end.
markpkessinger
(8,392 posts). . . is primarily a function of hospitals. It isn't such a problem in a hospice environment, where the "double effect" of morphine is both well understood, and clearly explained to patients and their families.
markpkessinger
(8,392 posts). . . whose office filed the charges in the first place. What on Earth did she hope to accomplish beyond terrorizing a grieving woman?