Final Exit Network Spin: It’s Not Killing, It’s Dignity

The Final Exit Network (FEN) is a radical pro-death group that counsels people and then helps them to kill themselves.

That’s why several of its members have been indicted by the Feds for their activities in Arizona and Georgia. Other investigations are ongoing.

No matter, FEN continues to spin the charges as unfair, harassing, and, well, un-American.

What twaddle.

The latest pro-death propaganda appeared in the Baltimore Sun a few days ago penned by Jerry Dicin, FEN’s president.

It’s a tour de force of manipulation, arrogance and outright dishonesty.

After noting that his FEN colleague Dr. Larry Egbert, is awaiting trial related to assisted killing in both Arizona and Georgia, Dicin launches into how Egbert was not complicit in murder, but was actually doing what doctors are supposed to do, and that this abominable behavior is a solution for people with Alzheimer’s Disease – both for the victims themselves and because it will spare their loved ones watching the progression of the disease:

By talking to these folks, Dr. Egbert was fulfilling his responsibility as a medical professional.

To understand why, consider the plight of those suffering from Alzheimer's [who] . . . can expect a slow, painful descent into advanced dementia . . .. Friends and family who are forced to witness their fall into oblivion suffer indescribably.

Given this bleak outlook, it's easy to see why some Alzheimer's patients choose to hasten their own death. It's also easy to see why Dr. Egbert was determined to help patients suffering from conditions like Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease make this difficult decision.

It is time for the world to recognize the right and the rationality for mentally competent adults in such circumstances to take their own lives.

Just in case you missed it: How many people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s can be judged mentally competent? Well, they can’t, but that’s of little consequence to Dicin – making people dead is the ultimate goal, no matter what. In truth, the pro-death crowd don’t care about mental competence – they just care about death on demand.

Dicin then trots out the old horror line of pain and suffering:

That's your mother screaming in that bed, dealing every day with some terrible disease like Lou Gehrig's. She can look forward to a body that can't move, speak or swallow food, a life of total dependency on others for every act of maintenance.

Well, what’s the evidence here? The truth is that very, very few people’s pain at the end of life cannot be controlled by good palliative care and pain management. No matter, it’s the horror that’s meant to goad people into killing themselves.

Solution? Why, the good folks at FEN, of course!!!

That's where my organization, Final Exit Network, comes in. We provide information and counsel to patients who approach us seeking to deliver themselves from torture and make informed choices. The impetus comes from within them; we do not "encourage" anyone. We go to great lengths to ensure that the person is capable of choosing rationally.

Oh yes, those rational Alzheimer’s guys!!

But the preliminary reports of the Fed undercover sting showed much more: FEN advocates not even asking for proof that the victim had a terminal disease (or any disease, for that matter), and the inconvenient fact that the undercover agent was assured that once the assisted killing had begun, his FEN “guide” would hold his hands tightly enough so that he couldn’t change his mind and rip the gas mask from his face.

Without coercion, lies, spin, propaganda, and a healthy dose of narcissism, the pro-death crowd won’t win.

Unless, by remaining silent, we let them.

Charlie & Jessica: A Story the Pro-Death Folks Don’t Want You to Read

For those of us doing our best to counter the spin, propaganda, and outright lies that the pro-assisted suicide and euthanasia folks regularly crank out, it’s understandable that we sometimes miss stories that make our points quite elegantly.

Don’t miss this UK story, written by Charlie Uttley, a TV presenter, about his relationship with his mother, Jessica, who is terminally ill with cancer.

Here is a story of love, care, and warmth. It’s even got some very dark humor. Charlie’s piece opens with a description of a song he wrote for his mother:

Not long ago, I wrote a song with an ex-Cambridge Footlight friend of mine called Smother Mother. The opening verse includes the lines: 'Why should comfort be dependent on a pharmacy of pills, when one well-disposed descendent and a pillow cures all ills? Smother, smother, smother, smother mother.'

The loudest laughter came from Jessica.

What’s most remarkable about the story is it counters just about all the points the other side uses to frighten and mislead people. Charlie shows that while caring for Jessica is no picnic, it’s not the horrible torture and hell that the pro-death side says most of us will face as our lives come to an end.

Here, along with some suffering, to be sure, is true dignity, true joy, and a palpable sense of love.

Love and dignity are not helium-filled plastic bags. They are not cold, calculated killings in a dingy apartment in Switzerland. 

No, the exemplars of love and dignity are Charlie and Jessica.

The Final Exit Network Gets Busted Part 2: SPIN MODE!!

Last week’s arrest of four FEN members in a federal sting in Georgia has cranked up the pro-death extremists’ propaganda machine. They’re in full spin mode.

You know there’s something going on when Dr. Death Jack Kevorkian is bleating about FEN being a bunch of whackos whose methods he doesn’t agree with.

From the story:

A lawyer for retired pathologist Jack Kevorkian, who participated in dozens of assisted suicides, said his client does not condone the methods of a national assisted-suicide ring with Michigan ties at the center of a multistate investigation.

Rich. 

Don’t miss the spin: It’s only that he doesn’t condone THE METHOD. He’d much prefer, I think, that FEN use the methods he did, especially in his televised killing of Thomas Youk in 1998.

So, an ersatz distancing, if you will.

Then there’s the ubiquitous Derek Humphry.

He of the Hemlock Society (now spun as “Compassion & Choices”).

He of the book “Final Exit.” (Gee, you’d think the Finale Exit Network could have been a bit more creative here).

He of deserting his second wife when she turned out to have terminal cancer.

ANWAY, Humphry went into full spin mode:

“We shall keep going — we will fight this case,” said Derek Humphry . . .This [Georgia] is a test case. We didn’t look for this. They handed us a case. The public is enormously interested.”

Don’t miss the spin: There we were, going about our kind business, and we have been unfairly targeted. We shall fight! We will not be silenced! You mess with us, we’ll take our case to the masses!!!

Ho-hum.

Except that good citizens reading these quotes less than carefully are likely to mistake killers for caregivers

Which is exactly what they want.

The Final Exit Network Gets Busted Part I

Well, things have gotten hot for the Final Exit Network.

They should.

Should get much hotter, if you ask me.

The reports were thick and fast late last week that an undercover federal investigation in Georgia resulted in the arrest of four FEN members on charges of assisted suicide, which is illegal in the state.

It seems that the feds began putting together pieces of the death puzzle after FEN was exposed in Arizona last year for allegedly helping kill a 58 year-old woman, who had no terminal illness at all, but who apparently had psychological problems.

So much for the pro-assisted suicide argument that assisted suicide should only be available for people with terminal illnesses. . . 

Then last June, in Georgia, 58 year-old John Celmer checked out. Celmer’s wife became suspicious that he hadn’t died in his sleep, as it first appeared when he was found. Going through her husband’s things after his death, she came across evidence that Celmer had corresponded with FEN members. She also found receipts for the purchase of two tanks of helium.

FEN recommends victims inhale helium through a mask placed over their head. The helium replaces oxygen, thereby suffocating the victim. It’s also almost impossible to trace at autopsy. It’s a FEN standard operating  procedure, as is their removing of all evidence of the assisted suicide after the death. That’s why Celmer’s wife thought he died in his sleep.

As if that wasn’t enough to raise red flags, Celmer’s doctor, completely surprised at his patient's death, weighed in. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

According to an affidavit, Celmer’s physician, Dr. Brant Carlson, told investigators Celmer had head and neck surgeries that left him cancer-free but Celmer was “concerned about his public appearance” because the surgeries disfigured him. “John Celmer was making a remarkable recovery” from two surgeries, according to the affidavit.

Celmer also suffered from arthritis in his hip, according to the affidavit, and his pain “could have been greatly reduced if he had taken his pain medication properly and stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.”

So, I’m asking all you gung-ho assisted suicide extremists, for the rest of your lives, please don’t tell us that assisted suicide is only for people who are suffering excruciating pain and who have less than 6 months to live.

Just go ahead and say what many of us already know: That what you really want is death on demand, anytime, anywhere for anyone – and for any reason.

Oh, and that you want it legalized, all for our good.

Death is good.

Legalized death is even better!!!!