Tomorrow Massachusetts Considers Death with Dignity Bill.

From the BostonHerald:

Massachusetts could become the fourth state to legalize elective human euthanasia for the terminally ill under a proposed bill whose author succumbed to the ravages of cancer before he could make his case to the Legislature.

“He fought this battle (with cancer) for five solid years. But at the end, you don’t want to be in pain. You don’t want your family to see you in pain. He thought this would be the best way,” said Eileen Lipkind, whose husband of 38 years, Albert Lipkind, 62, of Stoughton, died four months ago today from colon cancer that had spread to his liver.

At the State House tomorrow afternoon, the Joint Committee on the Judiciary will begin debating whether to follow the leads of Oregon, Washington state and Montana and implement a so-called Death With Dignity law. It would allow Bay State residents for whom time and luck is running out to choose to end their suffering by ingesting a prescribed medical cocktail.

In Oregon, 401 terminally ill patients have chosen to die on their terms since 1997, according to the Death With Dignity National Center.

Professor Paul Spiers of Danvers, who teaches forensic neuropsychology at Boston University, became an advocate of the right-to-die movement after a 1994 horseback riding accident left him paralyzed from the chest down.

“It becomes important when you’re looking at life in a wheelchair, but it’s the one choice we don’t have,” Spiers said. “We’re kinder to our pets than we are to people. You should be able to die peacefully in the company of your family and friends.”

Albert Lipkind, a grandfather and computer technician for Hewlett Packard, proposed that anyone 18 or older, who had been diagnosed by an attending physician as terminally ill, could request of that doctor - both orally and in writing - a lethal dose of medicine to take on their own. No one else could make the choice for the patient.

Though she would have supported his decision to die, Eileen Lipkind, a registered nurse, said her husband “wanted to live.”

“I don’t think it’s playing God at the end. God has already decided you have a terminal illness,” she said. “I believe in living and trying to care for somebody, but if there is no cure and there is no other way, I think somebody should have that choice. It should be a personal decision.”

h/t DeathWithDignity

Why Did Coakley Lose in Mass?

Coakley ran a bad campaign and she was a bad candidate. But different groups, in the aftermath, will claim a host of other reasons, mainly because they're more interesting narratives:

It's a referendum on the Obama administration.

The country said no to health care reform.

Coakley's comment on the conscience clause sank her.

Most all of this is bunk. Coakley was a bad candidate from Western Mass who alienated the rest of the state's democratic machine organizers. Brown campaigned like he wanted the job, Coakley didn't.

It's not like Democrats were doing much with their 60 super majority anyway. Just saying.

Getting the Emergency Contraception Conversation Right.

USA Today's Faith & Reason columnist Cathy Lynn Grossman gets the controversy over Senate candidate Coakley's "devout Catholic" comment right. Brown and his daughters can rant all they want: the point isn't to bash devout Catholics but to bring attention to laws that should allow all patients' access to the services they need, despite the denomination of the hospital they are taken to.

The excuse that many give to maintain denominational care in Catholic hospitals is that those who do not ascribe to Catholic doctrine can go somewhere else. And yet our federal government funds these organizations in order to provide health care services to the pluralistic American society.

And with 20% of our hospitals operated by the Catholic Church, 50 of them as sole providers for an entire community, ending up at a Catholic hospital in a time of trauma or crisis is likely.

Grossman writes:

In a hospital emergency room, whose religious freedom matters trumps someone else's beliefs?

In the final ugly hours before the critical vote for the late health reform champion Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts, accusations are flying. One of the newest comes from a conservative Catholic group that wants to see a Republican take the slot and, not coincidently, knock out the Democrats' filibuster-proof advantage in the Senate.

CatholicVoteAction is circulating a quote from Democratic candidate, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. She was asked by radio host Ken Pittman about the religious liberty rights of Catholic hospital workers who would refuse to administer contraception or abortion-inducing drugs. Her reply:

You can have religious freedom, but you probably shouldn't work in the emergency room.

To which CatholicVoteAction's president Brian Burch, tagging on a fund-raising appeal, says,

Emergency rooms are NO place for religious discrimination.

Who would disagree with that?

Well, it depends on whether you view discrimination against some patients -- you know, the folks who are having the medical emergency -- is worth consideration. These may include rape victims seeking emergency contraception, or women with life-threatening pregnancy complications, gay couples and single women whose life choices don't match these conservative Catholics' views.

Many may not be Catholic at all and may have very different beliefs about their rights to make faith-based decisions -- or decisions based on whatever is their guiding philosophy. (Saturday was Religious Freedom Day and President Obama, in his proclamation, included people of all faiths and none as celebrants of this constitutional right.)

Mass. State Sen. Scott Brown, Coakley's GOP opponent, backs proposals to allow "medical people with religious principles to find another emergency room care provider to administer a pill or service..." according to Pittman.

Do you think, in a genuine emergency, patients are in a position -- if they are even conscious -- to sit up and tell the ambulance driver or triage nurse to take them to a place or hand them off to someone where they'll get the care they seek? Can ER employees be required to violate their conscience or can must patients play roulette with their health or pass someone else's religious test?

Martha Coakley and the Emergency Room.

Coakley continues to get criticism for her comments that Catholic hospitals - all hospitals - should provide rape victims with emergency contraception.

Yesterday she reinforced her position by saying that if your devout faith prevents you from performing certain standard services in the emergency room, you probably shouldn't work there.

Don't miss the comments where she is, for offering a position that some disagree with, called a bitch and mentally unstable: the standard throw back to women who wish to stand up for their rights and the rights of others.

But despite all the conservative noise about how the Democrats botched this race and how this is a sign for 2010, Coakley has been forced to take a stand on a position that she isn't so articulate at conveying. What about patients' rights?

Her campaign has been less than impressive. While Brown may be a moderate, he's not my idea of a great candidate. (Romneycare?) And yet, he's simply had a better campaign.

But my point here: the Senate race in Massachusetts makes us ask, is there no issue, no race, no bill that can't be divided over "pro-life" positioning? I've yet to hear someone come out talking about patients' rights - no institution rights (Catholic hospitals) or employee rights to impose devout ideology on a pluralistic population. The need for women to get emergency contraception after rape is not even controversial when you poll people. Most Americans even support abortion for rape, incest and murder - even the Hyde amendment doesn't prohibit these services.

And yet we watch a ho-hum campaign get destroyed by the controversy over a non-controversial issue.

Pro-choice candidates better get their talking points together - and get them out of the religious right frame. They're railroading women, equality and patients' rights. Again.

UPDATE: more msogynistic comments at the conservative Washington Times. And still no note of what patients who have no choice but to go to a Catholic hospital but don't ascribe to Catholic doctrine are supposed to do. The conversation has been framed as one of provider rights, the woman, elder, minority, poor be damned. Yup. Good Catholic compassion.

UPDATE: Ben Stein at Politico.com looks at Coakley's comment and fails to get a couple of things right, like patients' rights. duh. But he does include text of the law, if you're interested.

UPDATE: Media Matters is correcting what many have said about Coakley's comment: She didn't say all devout Catholics shouldn't work in emergency rooms, she said those opposed to distribution of emergency contraception shouldn't.