At least 36 terminally ill people died last year after taking lethal medication prescribed by doctors under Washington State’s new physician-assisted suicide law, according to a state report released Thursday, the first since the law went into effect a year ago….

Most patients who died under the law in Washington last year had cancer. Prescribing doctors, who must submit forms to the State Department of Health about patients who received the medication, said all who died cited “loss of autonomy” as a reason for seeking it. Most also said they could no longer enjoy life and feared losing “dignity.”

Ten patients said they were concerned about being a burden on their family and friends, 11 cited pain and one said finances were an issue. Critics of the law have said it could prompt disproportionate use by lower-income people. Almost all of those who died in Washington said they had private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid or some combination. None said they had no insurance at all, though coverage was listed as unknown for five people. Most died within 90 minutes of taking the medicine, though at least one person lived for 28 hours. Two woke up after taking the medicine, then died later.

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A dozen House of Representatives Democrats opposed to abortion are willing to kill President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan unless it satisfies their demand for language barring the procedure, Representative Bart Stupak said on Thursday.

“Yes. We’re prepared to take responsibility,” Stupak said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked if he and his 11 Democratic allies were willing to accept the consequences for bringing down healthcare reform over abortion.

“Let’s face it. I want to see healthcare. But we’re not going to bypass the principles of belief that we feel strongly about,” he said.

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Of the remaining issues with the potential to bring down the entire health overhaul effort, the one that lawmakers fear most is abortion.

Abortion is such a politically hazardous issue that sponsors of both the House and Senate health bills have said their object was to maintain the status quo. “It is not the intention of this bill to, as the speaker has said, to change the policy that has been in place for three decades,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, (D-MD), on Tuesday. Hoyer was referring to what is known as the Hyde Amendment. It has barred federal funds from being used to pay for abortions since 1977.

But keeping the health bills abortion-neutral has proved impossible. And now the abortion language in the Senate-passed bill in particular could threaten the strategy Democratic leaders hope to use to get a final measure to President Obama’s desk for a signature.

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What is notable about both Plessy and Roe, is that the majority in each found it necessary to ignore the obvious to rule the way they did. At best, they bought into a lie. And sadly, whatever the motivations of individual judges, the black community targeted by Plessy, has also been affected disproportionately by Roe.

The majority’s decision in Roe could not have had a good outcome under any circumstances, but the current controversy is yet another example of how poorly adjudicated decisions tend to have unintended — and often terrible — consequences beyond those readily realized.

Of course, in the 1950s, many legal experts, law professors and politicians insisted that the segregation allowed by Plessy was “settled law.” Today, “experts” and politicians say the same about the abortion legacy of Roe.

But Plessy was unhinged from reality, and the courage of brave men and women such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks unsettled this “settled law” and earned the respect of the judgment of history.

Roe too is unhinged from the truth that everyone knows. Needed are more brave men and women willing to stand up and demand that a nation’s law on abortion will never be settled until it is brought into conformity with the truth.

Read the whole thing.

(Please note the above headline is theirs and not the way I would choose to word it–KSH).

For years the largely white staff of Georgia Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, tried to tackle the disproportionately high number of black women who undergo abortions. But, staff members said, they found it difficult to make inroads with black audiences.

So in 2009, the group took money that it normally used for advertising a pregnancy hot line and hired a black woman, Catherine Davis, to be its minority outreach coordinator.

Ms. Davis traveled to black churches and colleges around the state, delivering the message that abortion is the primary tool in a decades-old conspiracy to kill off blacks.

The idea resonated, said Nancy Smith, the executive director.

“We were shocked when we spent less money and had more phone calls” to the hot line, Ms. Smith said.

Read it all (from the front page of yesterday’s New York Times).

“It is time to set aside partisan divisions and special interest pressures to find ways to enact genuine reform. We encourage the administration and Congress to work in a bipartisan manner marked by political courage, vision and leadership,” the bishops said [in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this week].

“As pastors and teachers,” the letter continued, “we believe genuine health care reform must protect human life and dignity from conception to natural death, not threaten them, especially for the voiceless and vulnerable. We believe health care legislation must respect the consciences of providers, taxpayers, purchasers of insurance and others, not violate them.

“We believe universal coverage should be truly universal and should not be denied to those in need because of their condition, age, where they come from or when they arrive here. Providing affordable and accessible health care that clearly reflects these fundamental principles is a public good, moral imperative and urgent national priority.”

“We hope and pray,” the letter added, “that the Congress and the country will come together around genuine health care reform that protects the life, dignity, consciences and health of all.”

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Although it may look otherwise the arguments around assisted suicide are about two different trajectories for our society and that is why passion is running high. I cannot remember an issue that has so united the bishops of the Church of England ”“ not a group famed for their unanimity! I hope this may paradoxically be a sign that this is not all about “religion” but the nature of our humanity and what sort of society we want to be a part of. A position paper from the Church of England said this: “Suffering may be met with compassion, commitment to high quality services and effective medication; meeting it by assisted suicide or through voluntary euthanasia, however well intentioned, is merely removing it in the crudest way possible.”

I very much hope that Keir Starmer’s guidelines will be recognised as providing the nuance and discretion needed for our social and moral wellbeing and steer us away from the road to legalising assisted suicide. If we want to build a society which majors on compassion and care, which supports those who are dying or fearful of growing infirm and a burden, there are far better roads for us to travel.

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The policy I am publishing later today will show that we have looked carefully at the responses and, where appropriate, made changes. But I draw comfort from the large number of those responding who endorsed many important factors in the interim policy.

In the light of recent discussion about so-called mercy killing it is important to be clear about what the policy does not cover. It does not cover murder or manslaughter.

Assisted suicide involves assisting the victim to take his or her own life. Someone who takes the life of another undertakes a very different act and may well be liable to a charge of murder or manslaughter. That distinction is an important one that we all need to understand.

Ultimately, as many people recognised, each case is unique; each case has to be considered on its own facts and merits; and prosecutors have to make professional judgements about difficult and sensitive issues.

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Catholics and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must continue to stand together as a “vital bulwark” against those in American society who want to “reduce religion to a purely private reality,” the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told a historic gathering at Brigham Young University in Provo.

Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago spoke Feb. 23 on “Catholics and Latter-day Saints: Partners in the Defense of Religious Freedom” as part of the Mormon school’s forum series. He was the first cardinal to speak at the university.

Cardinal George praised the Mormons for their work with Catholics to protect the conscience rights of health care providers and institutions that do not want to participate in abortion or assisted suicide and to defend marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

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It is natural for a person to feel helpless and hopeless when a terminal or incurable condition is first diagnosed but, given the right support by family, friends and the medical community, it is quite possible lto come through this phase and to enjoy some quality of life and even its enrichment. As Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the Hospice movement, has said, ” Our last days are not necessarily lost days “. Not only can they be used to recapture the past and to strengthen relationships but also for contemplation and preparation. Again and again, people have told me how much they have learned about themselves and others at this time in their lives.

It is simply a mistake to emphasise the autonomy of the individual, especially at this point. It is relatedness that matters. Rather than seeing themselves as unwanted and alone, people, at this stage of life, should feel themselves drawn into a circle of love and care where they will be made as comfortable as possible and valued for who they are. It is not necessary always to be independent. Human beings depend upon one another at every stage of life and this one is no different. “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ”, says St.Paul and this is exactly what the Hospice movement has shown us can be done in the care of the terminally and incurably ill. Thank God for all the wonderful people involved in this work.

Another valuable lesson which this movement has taught us is that it is nearly always possible to manage pain and to make sure that patients do not suffer unnecessarily. Palliative medicine is now highly developed and, whether in hospices or in pain clinics in hospitals, it tries to make sure that science is made to serve the care of people who are seriously ill and relieve them of as much pain as possible. Such relief may, in fact, lengthen the life-span but even if it has the effect of hastening death, this is quite different from an intervention that intends the death of the patient.

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MELISSA BLOCK, host:

It’s not everyday that someone in the public eye admits on television to having killed someone. But that is exactly what happened earlier this week in Britain. The BBC aired a prerecorded show hosted by one of its veteran reporters in which he made startling admission.

NPR’s Rob Gifford reports from London.

ROB GIFFORD: Seventy-year-old Ray Gosling has been hosting programs on BBC television for decades. On Monday, in a documentary about death and dying, as he walked through a graveyard in his native city of Nottingham, he said it was time to share a secret that he had kept for a long time.

Mr. RAY GOSLING (Host, BBC Television): I killed someone once. He was a young chap. He had been my lover and he got AIDS. And in a hospital, one hot afternoon, doctors said there’s nothing we can do. And he was in terrible, terrible pain. I said to the doctor leave me just for a bit and he went away. And I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead. Doctor came back and I said he’s gone. Nothing more was ever said.

Read or listen to it all.

If ever Carol Gaetjens becomes unconscious with no hope of awakening, even if she could live for years in that state, she says she wants her loved ones to discontinue all forms of artificial life support.

But now there’s a catch for this churchgoing Catholic woman. U.S. bishops have decided that it is not permissible to remove a feeding tube from someone who is unconscious but not dying, except in a few circumstances.

People in a persistent vegetative state, the bishops say, must be given food and water indefinitely by natural or artificial means as long as they are otherwise healthy. The new directive, which is more definitive than previous church teachings, also appears to apply broadly to any patient with a chronic illness who has lost the ability to eat or drink, including victims of strokes and people with advanced dementia.

Catholic medical institutions — including 46 hospitals and 49 nursing homes in Illinois — are bound to honor the bishops’ directive, issued late last year, as they do church teachings on abortion and birth control. Officials are weighing how to interpret the guideline in various circumstances.

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Mercy killing is being legalised on the back of a celebrity-driven campaign and without reference to Parliament, the Archbishop of York claimed yesterday.

Dr John Sentamu condemned the current bandwagon of fashionable opinion seeking to allow relatives to help the sick and dying commit suicide without fear of prosecution.

He spoke out on the day of a high-profile pro-euthanasia intervention by bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett along with the publication of two opinion polls suggesting a backing for reform.

Referring to the polls, the Archbishop said: ‘The silent majority never get asked. One thousand people out of about 61million really is not very much guidance.

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For 43 years, Super Bowl viewers have watched all kinds of commercials from companies that are famous (Coca-Cola) or otherwise (Cash4Gold.com), peddling everything from automobiles to Xerox copiers. But never has there been a Super Bowl spot that took sides on a contentious social issue — until now.

CBS, which will broadcast Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday, has sold 30 seconds of commercial time in the game to Focus on the Family, an evangelical organization known for conservative views on subjects like abortion and gay marriage. The commercial is to feature Tim Tebow, the college football star, and his mother, Pam, discussing their anti-abortion positions.

A news release distributed by Focus on the Family last month said the spot would feature the Tebows sharing a personal story centered on “Celebrate family, celebrate life.” In the past, Mrs. Tebow has spoken of a decision she made to give birth to Tim rather than have an abortion.

But whether she recounts that story — and how much the commercial deals with the arguments between supporters of abortion rights and anti-abortion advocates — are not known at this time. Focus on the Family has not provided further information about the spot and CBS has declined to discuss it because the network’s policy is to let an advertiser decide whether to reveal the contents of a commercial before broadcast.

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We elect our politicians to take account from experts of a wider range of factors than the will of the people on specific issues, such as capital punishment and assisted suicide. In the case of the latter, almost the entire medical profession is arraigned against proposals for legalised assisted suicide, in the shape of trade unions and professional bodies such as the British Medical Association, the General Medical Council and the Royal College of Physicians.

Doctors’ resistance is rooted in the prospect of the administration of death as a clinical practice. It is one thing, they argue, to provide an assessment of a patient’s health for insurance purposes or fitness to travel; quite another and wholly compromising of a professional duty of care to do so as a justification for ending a life.

That is partly why a simple majority in a public poll, for whom the prospect of a lethal dose from a doctor is a logical extension of consumer choice, cannot be the sole or even principal guide for changing law in matters of life and death. There is too much at stake. And not just for the sick and dying and for those who care for them, but for all of us.

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Millions of viewers understandably appreciate the Tebow family for standing on faith when faced with a difficult decision, and we can all celebrate the brilliant outcome. But use of the Tebow story in this context raises difficult questions as well: Does it mean that women should always ignore medical advice pointing to the necessity of an abortion? Even if the woman’s life is at stake? How is this message to be received by the many decent women who agonized and made the other choice?

Regarding CBS, is money alone the reason for its accepting an advocacy ad after years and years of refusing such content for Super Bowl telecasts, or is deeper political intrigue in play? What does this Sunday’s pro-life ad portend for future Super Bowls?

As for Tebow, the Super Bowl controversy is playing out at exactly the same time as the mounting criticism of his passing skills and his suitability for the pro game. Given the NFL’s well-known aversion to controversy, is he putting his draft prospects in even greater jeopardy by aligning with Focus on the Family and its anti-abortion stance?

One thing we do know: Tebow has proved like few others the ability to withstand the heat and stay in the kitchen. That ability is being tested like never before. With this pro-life Super Bowl ad, he’s sizzling in the frying pan of sports-celebrity scrutiny and the white-hot fire of culture-war politics.

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[The] Rev. Asman, of Santa Barbara’s Trinity Episcopal Church, and Rabbi Gross-Schaefer, of the Community Shul of Montecito and Santa Barbara, annunciated their support for women’s rights and asserted that being religious and being pro-choice are not always mutually exclusive.

Declaring himself a “progressive religious activist,” Asman critiqued the health care bill’s anti-abortion amendment. “God is grieved by this amendment,” he said. Asman went on to say that he feared the “tragic consequences of a pre-Roe world.”

Gross-Schaefer””who for 28 years has been a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, a Catholic institution””was equally supportive of a woman’s right to choose, declaring that abortion was “not a concept of murder whatsoever” given that the “fetus not a separate human being””not until a head emerges.” He said that as “a very religious person, I have to be pro-choice.”

Read the whole thing.

CBS is set to air an anti-abortion ad featuring Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother Pam. The two will discuss Mrs. Tebow’s decision against an abortion after she became ill while pregnant with Tim.

The network has received complaints, most notably from women’s advocacy groups, and the prominent National Organization of Women. Tuesday the network responded.

“We have for some time moderated our approach to advocacy submissions after it became apparent that our stance did not reflect public sentiment or industry norms,” CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said in a statement. ”In fact, most media outlets have accepted advocacy ads for some time.”

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The teen pregnancy rate in the USA rose 3% in 2006, the first increase in more than a decade, according to data out today. The data also show higher rates of births and abortions among girls 15-19.

The numbers, calculated by the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit group that studies reproductive and sexual health, show a clear reversal from the downward trend that began in the 1990s.

About 7% of teen girls got pregnant in 2006, a rate of 71.5 pregnancies per 1,000 teens. That’s up slightly from 69.5 in 2005, Guttmacher says. In 1990, when rates peaked, about 12% got pregnant.

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I went to the March for Life rally Friday on the Mall expecting to write about its irrelevance. Isn’t it quaint, I thought, that these abortion protesters show up each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, even though the decision still stands after 37 years. What’s more, with a Democrat in the White House likely to appoint justices who support abortion rights, surely the Supreme Court isn’t going to overturn Roe in the foreseeable future.

How wrong I was. The antiabortion movement feels it’s gaining strength, even if it’s not yet ready to predict ultimate triumph, and Roe supporters (including me) are justifiably nervous.

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As the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision nears, anti-abortion activists prepare for the annual March for Life and their counterparts plan religious services to pray for the safety of abortion providers.

But, 37 years after the contentious Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, is there any hope for common ground?

Experts say it will be difficult — especially in light of recent health care battles — but not impossible.

Laurie Zoloth, professor of bioethics and religion at Northwestern University, said there are some projects — such as giving incentives to teen girls to avoid a second pregnancy — that can bring feuding factions together.

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The Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Tom Butler, vice chair of the Archbishops’ Council’s Mission and Public Affairs Council, said: “I welcome the Dying Matters initiative as an important contribution to the debate about dying and death. The advances in palliative and end of life care have been helpful in improving the quality of life of those who are dying and their families, and I hope that this new coalition will bring help and information to many people.”

Hilary Fisher, Director of the Dying Matters Coalition, said: “We are delighted that the Church of England has joined the Dying Matters coalition. For too long, issues of death and bereavement have been perceived as too big or scary to talk about; the ensuing silence has resulted in isolation and confusion among dying people and their families. Openness, conversation and communication are vital in addressing this.

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The Montana Supreme Court may have ruled Montanans have a right to die with dignity, but questions remain about the future of the new law and its implementation.

The court ruled that neither state law or public policy preclude doctors from prescribing lethal drugs to mentally competent, terminally-ill patients who want to end their lives.

Some supporters, like Helena personal injury attorney James Hunt, a former chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of Montana, described the court’s Dec. 31 decision as affirming an “option for aid in dying and as compassionate Christian care-giving,” not suicide.

“I had a brother who died of pancreatic cancer and I watched him die, and I’ve watched others die,” said Hunt, who filed a brief for religious leaders in support of Baxter v. Montana. The lawsuit was filed by Compassion and Choices, a right-to-die advocacy group, on behalf of 75-year-old retired Billings truck driver Robert Baxter. He had terminal cancer and sought the right to obtain medication from his doctor to end his life. He has since died.

Joining Hunt’s brief were several Episcopal clergy, including the Rev. Steve Oreskovich, rector of Holy Spirit Church in Missoula.

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Supporters of a woman’s right to choose an abortion had reason to feel confident a year ago, with a newly elected Democratic president whose party controlled the House and the Senate.

But not long after President Obama lifted a ban on U.S. funding for international health groups that support abortion, a gunman killed the nation’s most prominent abortion doctor, George Tiller. And by year’s end, congressional majorities voted to limit access to abortion coverage in proposed health-care reform legislation. The fact that an antiabortion Michigan Democrat won the day stunned abortion-rights advocates.

“We think the potential now for even more mischief and more attacks on pro-choice politics is very, very evident,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “The other side is really going to attack on every front. They’re just emboldened.”

The new year finds the opposing political forces at loggerheads once more, as both sides prepare for health-care negotiations and events surrounding the 37th anniversary, on Jan. 22, of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

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The question of what it means to be a parent has never been simple. But three recent cases highlight just how complicated things can get””and how inconsistent the courts have been in weighing genetic parenthood against the deals struck by would-be parents (gay and straight) with their partners….

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In a move that is both ethically profound and (so far, at least) politically rare, Montana has become the third state to legalize physician-assisted suicide.

A divided state supreme court ruled Thursday that neither state law nor public policy prevented doctors from prescribing lethal drugs to terminally-ill patients who want to end their lives.

In essence, the court ruled, suicide is not a crime. The majority justices wrote:

“We find nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or Montana statutes indicating that physician aid in dying is against public policy. The ”˜against public policy’ exception to consent has been interpreted by this court as applicable to violent breaches of the public peace. Physician aid in dying does not satisfy that definition. We also find nothing in the plain language of Montana statutes indicating that physician aid in dying is against public policy. In physician aid in dying, the patient ”“ not the physician ”“ commits the final death-causing act by self-administering a lethal dose of medicine.”

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The Episcopal Church has endorsed a letter to members of the United States Senate endorsing taxpayer funding of abortions.

On Dec 4, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice released a letter endorsed by the Episcopal Church, Catholics for Choice and other liberal religious groups expressing their opposition to an amendment to the health care reform bill before Congress that would remove abortion funding from the proposed legislation.

“We believe that it is our social and moral obligation to ensure access to high quality comprehensive health care services at every stage in an individual’s life,” the RCRC letter said, noting that “affordable and accessible care for all” was “necessary for the well-being of all people in our nation.”

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Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said the White House and the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives have been pressuring him not to speak out on the “compromise” abortion language in the Senate version of the health care bill.

“They think I shouldn’t be expressing my views on this bill until they get a chance to try to sell me the language,” Stupak told CNSNews.com in an interview on Tuesday. “Well, I don’t need anyone to sell me the language. I can read it. I’ve seen it. I’ve worked with it. I know what it says. I don’t need to have a conference with the White House. I have the legislation in front of me here.”

The Michigan Democrat succeeded last month in getting 64 House Democrats to join him in attaching his pro-life amendment to the House version of the health-care bill. The “Stupak amendment,” as the provision is known, would prohibit the federal government from allocating taxpayer money to pay for any part of any health insurance plan that covers abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger.

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The manager’s amendment is light years removed from the Stupak-Pitts Amendment that was approved by the House of Representatives on November 8 by a bipartisan vote of 240-194. The new abortion language solves none of the fundamental abortion-related problems with the Senate bill, and it actually creates some new abortion-related problems.

NRLC will score the upcoming roll call votes on cloture on the Reid manager’s amendment, and on the underlying bill, as votes in favor of legislation to allow the federal government to subsidize private insurance plans that cover abortion on demand, to oversee multi-state plans that cover elective abortions, and to empower federal officials to mandate that private health plans cover abortions even if they do not accept subsidized enrollees, among other problems.

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Bishops William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., and John C. Wester of Salt Lake City, who chair the committees on Domestic Justice and Human Development and on Migration, respectively, joined Cardinal DiNardo in the Dec. 19 statement.

Although praising the manager’s amendment for including Casey’s expansion of adoption tax credits and assistance for pregnant women, the statement cited two remaining problems:

— “It does not seem to allow purchasers who exercise freedom of choice or of conscience to ‘opt out’ of abortion coverage in federally subsidized health plans that include such coverage. Instead it will require purchasers of such plans to pay a distinct fee or surcharge which is extracted solely to help pay for other people’s abortions.

— “The government agency that currently manages health coverage for federal employees will promote and help subsidize multi-state health plans that include elective abortions, contrary to longstanding law governing this agency.”

Read it all.