The Baxter Decision

By Margaret Dore

In 2009, the Montana Supreme Court issued Baxter v. State, which cracked open the door to the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia in Montana.* A local doctor subsequently announced that he was actively killing or assisting to kill his patients. As far as I know, no one did anything to stop him.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia became de facto legal. Some of these deaths were presumably voluntary. In my personal experience from other states, deaths also occur on an involuntary or nonvoluntary basis, for example due to financial concerns. Adult children want the money right away and/or fear that mom or dad will change their wills, leaving the children with nothing.

A Short History of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Montana

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA 

State Capitol

Assisted suicide means that someone provides the means and/or information for another person to commit suicide.  If a doctor is involved, the practice may be termed physician-assisted suicide.  Euthanasia is the administration of a lethal agent by another person. 

A.  Assisted Suicide

In 1895, the Montana Legislature enacted a criminal statute prohibiting assisted suicide as a "crime against the public safety."[1] In 1907, 1921 and 1947, this statute was re-codified, but its text remained unchanged.[2] The statute stated: "Every person who deliberately aids, or advises or encourages another to commit suicide is guilty of a felony."[3]

Join Us at the Fair!

This month, Choice is an Illusion will be at the fair in both Montana and Washington State. We have a long history of working in Montana, but this will be our first time in Washington.

In Montana, we will have a booth at the NW Montana Fair & Rodeo, in Kalispell, August 14-18, 2019. Click here to read our event flyer to learn more.

The Northwest Montana Fair

Thank you to our volunteers who braved the smoke to join us at the 2018 Northwest Montana Fair in Kalispell.

We educated the public about problems with legalization, including how people with years to live are encouraged to throw away their lives, and fatal elder abuse.

Thanks especially, to everyone who worked the table, including Lucinda Hardy of Columbia Falls, Gail Bell of Bozeman and Linda Clark of Seattle. To read Lucinda's story, click here. To read Gail's story, click here.

SB 202 Presumed Dead

On February 11, 2015, SB 202, seeking to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia, was tabled in committee.  The bill is now presumed dead.

Under the bill, young adults with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, would have been "eligible" for assisted suicide and euthanasia.  The bill, if passed, would have created the following problems:

• The encouragement of people with decades to live to throw away their lives.  
• The creation of new paths of elder abuse, especially for people with money (in the inheritance context).
• The empowerment of health care systems to steer patients to suicide, which is well documented in Oregon, one of the few states where assisted suicide is legal. 
• An increase in other "conventional" suicides, including violent suicides by firearms, which is the case in Oregon. 

To view documentation regarding these problems, and other problems with legalization, please click here for the text; click here for the attachments

Thank you to everyone for your help to make the defeat of SB 202 possible.

Bill Clarifying that Assisted suicide is a Crime, Passes House

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/12/bill-makes-physician-assisted-suicide-crime/70228080/

HELENA – The Montana House of Representatives endorsed a bill by one vote Thursday that would make it illegal for doctors to prescribe life-ending medication to terminally ill patients who ask for it.
The House endorsed the bill 51-49 on second reading. If it passes third reading, the measure will head to the Senate for consideration.

“We do talk in this chamber about personal liberty, but with liberty comes with responsibility,” bill sponsor Rep. Jerry Bennett, R-Libby, said. “Suicide is a contagion. This creates a difficult situation for a state that has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation.”

Republican Rep. Keith Regier of Kalispell added that House Bill 477 in his estimation is a suicide-prevention bill.

Under the measure, physician-assisted suicide would become a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a $50,000 fine, or both.

SB 202 Tabled in Committee!

On February 11, 2012, SB 202, which would have legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia in Montana, was tabled in Committee.

Defeat SB 202!

The Montana Legislature is considering SB 202, which if passed, would legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia in Montana.

Under the bill, young adults with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, would be "eligible" for assisted suicide/euthanasia.  Such persons can live long healthy lives, for years, even decades. 

The bill, if passed, it will create the following problems:

• It will encourage people with years to live to throw away their lives.  
• It will create new paths of elder abuse, especially in the inheritance context.
• It will empower health care systems to steer patients to suicide, which is well documented in Oregon where assisted suicide is legal. 

If the bill is passed, and Montana follows the "Oregon experience," other conventional suicides will increase, which will create serious public welfare/financial issues in Montana (in Oregon, conventional suicides are a $41 million problem due to hospitalization costs, etc).

To view documentation regarding these problems, and other problems with legalization, please click here for the text; click here for the attachments

Please also tell the Montana Legislature to vote "NO" on SB 202.

Senator Shockley: Position Changed with Evidence

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/position-changed-with-evidence/article%20406ec244-237a-5cca-b240-1f2b407b49f3.html

October 24, 2014 6:30 am

I am a former legislator and a lawyer who at one time favored permitting physician-assisted suicide, but changed my position after looking at the evidence.

William Clarke is wrong about the legality of assisted suicide, and his definition of suicide, as described in his letter of Oct. 15. Physician-assisted suicide is against the law in Montana and killing oneself is suicide regardless of your health.

The present law is the Baxter case, which says that under certain circumstances a physician who assisted someone to kill herself/himself has a defense to a charge of homicide. It is a defense if the doctor is charged with homicide, that does not make it legal. If the doctor is charged with homicide and can convince a jury of certain facts, he or she will not be convicted. If the doctor fails to do so, he or she is convicted of a felony. Of course, there is the civil liability of the doctor, which is not addressed at all by Clarke.

Legalizing physician-assisted suicide will lead to elder abuse and other problems. The American Medical Association is against physician-assisted suicide for the same reason I am. It will lead to abuse of the elderly and others who are infirm, mentally or physically, but not really “terminally ill.” As an example, the much-touted Oregon law allows ordinary diabetes to be considered a terminally ill disease

Jim Shockley,

Victor

Assisters Can Have Their Own Agenda

http://ravallirepublic.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_d9ec8917-b025-5aad-97dd-0520559fde00.html

Greed, personal motives can influence 'choice' to commit assisted suicide . . .

A Roundup man was recently charged with “aiding or soliciting suicide” of a 16-year-old girl here in Montana. His apparent motive was to prevent her testimony against him in another matter, i.e., by getting her to kill herself. According to an Associate Press article, he coerced her to actually take steps towards that goal, which fortunately did not result in her death. See  http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/convicted-rapist-charged-with-aiding-or-soliciting-suicide-of-victim/article_65c2f39c-ae01-5104-a279-da45b352ef42.html

Similarly, in Minnesota, a former nurse was recently convicted of assisting a young man to kill himself. Both the nurse and the Roundup man had used webcams to communicate with their victims. The nurse’s reported motive was the “thrill of the chase.” See  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/suicideobsessed-us-nurse-convicted-of-helping-coventry-man-kill-himself-9722534.html.

These stories illustrates a fundamental problem with legalizing assisted suicide. The assisting person can have his or her own agenda to encourage a person to kill themselves. The “choice” will not necessarily be that of the victim/patient.

In my practice, where I have a high percentage of older patients, I have witnessed greed by family members over inheritances, including vicious battles over the death bed. This same motive of greed could lead to a coerced suicide, especially if assisted suicide were legalized in our state.

Let’s keep legal assisted suicide out of Montana.

Annie Bukacek,
Kalispell

Assisters Can Have Their Own Agenda

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-assisted-suicide-20141005,0,1813199.story

Brad Williams makes a good point about the problems with legalizing assisted suicide, one of them being that people assisting a suicide may have their own agenda ("The perils of assisted suicide," Oct. 2).

Mr. Williams gives the example of a recent Montana case in which a man is accused of encouraging a teenage girl to kill herself in order to prevent her from testifying against him in a rape trial.

I am a doctor in Oregon, one of the few states in which physician-assisted suicide is legal. In this context, assisters with an agenda include our state's Medicaid program, which uses coverage incentives to steer patients to suicide.

The program will pay for a patient's suicide but will not necessarily pay for the patient's treatment to cure a disease or to extend the patient's life.

In other words, with the legalization of assisted suicide, the "treatment" of suicide is displacing desired treatments to cure or to extend life.

I first became aware of such issues in 1982, shortly before my first wife died of cancer. We had just visited her doctor. As we were leaving, he had suggested that she overdose herself on medication.

I still remember the look of horror on her face. She said, "Ken, he wants me to kill myself."

We must protect our health care system from such abuses. Citizens should tell their legislators and other public officials to say no to assisted-suicide.

Kenneth Stevens, Sherwood, Ore.

Assisted suicide has broader application to people who aren't at "end of life"

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/assisted-suicide-has-broader-application-to-people-who-aren-t/article_ac55a646-3843-11e4-a89b-001a4bcf887a.html

Thank you for Ted Friesen’s (Sept. 5) letter describing the broader agenda of assisted suicide proponent Compassion & Choices to defend Medicaid against individual patient choices. I also appreciate your paper’s provision of the links to supporting documentation so that I can read the evidence for myself.

I was, however, disappointed with the headline given to Friesen’s letter, which implies that assisted suicide legalization only affects people at the “end of life.” This is not true for at least two reasons.

First, in places where legalization has been proposed, “eligibility” requirements are not limited to people at the end of life. Consider, for example, Montana’s Baxter case where Compassion & Choices proposed legal assisted suicide for “terminally ill adult patients.” A formal opinion letter by Dr. Richard Wonderly and attorney Theresa Schrempp attaches a two-page copy of that proposal and states:

“Shockingly, this definition is broad enough to include an 18-year-old who is insulin dependent or . . . a young adult with stable HIV/AIDS. Each of these patients could live for decades with appropriate medical treatment. Yet, they are “terminally ill” according to the definition promoted by advocates of assisted suicide.”

http://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/schrempp_wonderly_opn_ltr1.pdf

Second, even if an assisted suicide law is limited to persons expected to die in a short time, there is the problem that predictions of life expectancy can be wrong. I have seen this in my own practice.

Consider also John Norton, who was diagnosed with ALS and told that he would get progressively worse (be paralyzed) and die in three to five years. He instead has a “wonderful life” 57 years later. His affidavit states:

“If assisted suicide or euthanasia had been available to me in the 1950s, I would have missed the bulk of my life and my life yet to come.“

https://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/signed-john-norton-affidavit_001.pdf

Carley C. Robertson,
Havre

Convicted rapist charged with ‘aiding or soliciting suicide’ of victim

http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/convicted-rapist-charged-with-aiding-or-soliciting-suicide-of-victim/article_65c2f39c-ae01-5104-a279-da45b352ef42.html

September 18, 2014 6:00 am  •  By Eddie Gregg

A Roundup man in Montana State Prison for having sex with an underage girl is facing a new charge alleging he pressured the girl to kill herself during a live video chat in September 2013.

Last week, the Musselshell County Attorney’s Office charged Michael John Morlan, 21, with aiding or soliciting suicide, and two other felonies — intimidation and tampering with witnesses and informants.

It is unclear whether anyone has ever been charged with or convicted of aiding or soliciting suicide in Montana. Musselshell County Attorney Kent M. Sipe was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Charging documents say Morlan contacted the girl, who is now 16 years old, via Skype, an online video-chatting service, on Sept. 1, 2013, and told her to kill herself while he watched.

The documents say Morlan told her he wanted to watch so that he could make sure she was doing it right.

The alleged victim reported to law enforcement that when she started crying, Morlan told her to stop wasting air and get it over with.

Court records, quoting the alleged victim, detail a back-and-forth conversation between the two in which Morlan repeatedly told her to kill herself and pressured her to continue as she cut herself and took prescription anti-depressants.

When she started cutting her wrists, Morlan told her to cut deeper, she said. The girl said she had prescription anti-depressants and put them in her hand. When she did this, she said, Morlan told her to take all of them.

She said she took the pills and then panicked, disconnected the Skype call and went to her parents for help.

About a year prior to this incident, Morlan had been charged with two felony counts of sexual intercourse without consent involving the same girl.

The charges alleged that Morlan had a sexual relationship with her from April 2011 — when she was 12 years old — through July 2012 and that he admitted to law enforcement that he digitally penetrated the girl on July 25, 2012.

Morlan was apparently out of jail after posting bond at the time he is accused of trying to coerce the girl to kill herself.

The girl reported that in August 2013, Morlan stalked and intimidated her when she tried to avoid communication with him.

She said he threatened to make her life miserable if she went to police and told her he had people watching her.

The girl told investigators that while at the youth center in Roundup a person, identified in charging documents as B.K., came up to her and told her to “quit telling everyone that Mickey raped you.”

In November, Morlan pleaded guilty to the two rape charges. District Judge Randal I. Spaulding sentenced him to 15 years in prison, with eight years suspended.

The judge also revoked Morlan’s sentence in a 2011 felony drug distribution case and sentenced him to an additional five-year commitment.

Morlan, who is being held at the state prison, is scheduled for arraignment in Musselshell County District Court on Sept. 22.

Aiding or soliciting suicide caries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Oregon doctor's experience leads him to warn Montanans not to accept assisted suicide

http://ravallirepublic.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_df457041-2d8f-5c56-92c8-05d08616234d.html

Dear Editor:

I am the doctor cited in the opinion piece, “Assisted suicide is not legal, not the answer.” (Aug. 21). I am also professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Oregon Health & Science University. I have treated thousands of patients with cancer.

The opinion piece correctly describes how Oregon’s Medicaid program uses coverage incentives to steer people to assisted suicide, which is legal in Oregon: Medicaid will not necessarily cover a patient’s treatment to potentially cure a disease or to extend the patient’s life. The program will cover his or her suicide. Desired treatments for cure or to extend life are thereby displaced with the “treatment” of suicide.

I first became involved with the assisted suicide issue shortly before my first wife died of cancer in 1982. We had just made what would be her last visit with her doctor. As we were leaving, he had suggested that she overdose herself on medication. I still remember the look of horror on her face. She said, “Ken, he wants me to kill myself.”

To learn more about how assisted suicide works in Oregon, please see my affidavit, with supporting documentation attached, can be viewed here:  https://maasdocuments.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/dr-stevens-affidavit_001.pdf .

Protect your health care. Don’t let legal assisted suicide come to Montana.

Kenneth Stevens,
Sherwood, Oregon

Ted Friesen Published!

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/end-of-life-keep-assisted-suicide-illegal-in-state/article_a304190a-350b-11e4-bc38-0019bb2963f4.html

Dear Editor:

I was glad to see the August 21 opinion piece disputing the false claim that assisted suicide is legal in Montana.

I retired from the Motion Picture Pension and Health Plans in Studio City, California, as the chief financial officer. One reason that I retired to Montana was that I had the perception that it was senior-citizen friendly, unlike Oregon and Washington, which have adopted laws allowing doctors and family members to assist them in killing themselves. That was repugnant to me.

Of course, now that I am in Montana, I find myself in a state targeted for the legalization of assisted suicide/euthanasia by the former Hemlock Society, now known as Compassion & Choices.

With the opinion piece describing the additional mission of that organization to discourage patient cures and to defend Medicaid against individual patient choices, I see that I have even more reason to be concerned about that organization’s agenda.

I have also read the opinion piece by Compassion & Choices President Barbara Combs Lee, which can be viewed at this link: maasdocuments.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/barbaracoombsleeagainstwagner1.pdf.

Therein, Combs Lee not only discourages individual choices and defends Medicaid, she effectively argues that she and her organization know better than individual patients acting in conjunction with their doctors (page 2, paragraph 3). While I recognize that doctors can at times be wrong and not make the best decision, I don’t want her or her organization making decisions for me. It’s my life.

Let’s keep assisted suicide, euthanasia and the rest of Compassion & Choices’ agenda out of Montana.

Ted Friesen, Bigfork

Legalization of 'assisted suicide' leading to increase in reports of involuntary deaths

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/legalization-of-assisted-suicide-leading-to-increase-in-reports-of/article_5d456780-2975-11e4-a660-0019bb2963f4.html

I am president of the Hospice Patients Alliance. We are a charitable patient advocacy organization acting to preserve the original hospice mission to promote quality care at the end of a person’s life. I am writing in response to Gail Bell’s letter describing medical personnel over-reaching which caused the death of her mother.  [To view Gail Bell's letter, go here ]

A hidden and disturbing issue that I see in my work is the misuse of “terminal,” “palliative” and/or “total” sedation to end the life of a patient who is not otherwise dying, often instigated by a family member who stands to gain.

Consider the 2012 case against Kaiser Health Care. According to an article describing court documents, doctors killed the patient, a wealthy older man, in four hours and 40 minutes through a “terminal extubation,” which included a morphine overdose that “effectively ended oxygen support.” The patient’s daughters had allegedly urged this result in order to obtain large inheritances. See William Dotinga, “Grim Complaint Against Kaiser Hospital,” Feb. 6, 2012, available at www.courthousenews.com/2012/02/06/43641.htm. Moreover, per the article, court documents say that the doctors’ actions “caused the death of a relatively healthy, wealthy man with many more years to live and love.“

In some cases, the imposed death is due to a doctor’s assessment of the patient’s “quality of life” as opposed to the patient’s desire to live. This is often the case if the patient is disabled or elderly, or declared incompetent. Assisted “suicide” in these cases is clearly imposed death.

With the push to legalize assisted suicide, I have seen increased reports of involuntary deaths. Now, Bell’s report.

Death with dignity is never achieved by imposing death through “stealth euthanasia” or assisted suicide.

Ron Panzer, president,
Hospice Patients Alliance,

Rockford, Michigan

Montana's Law Protected Me

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/physician-assisted-suicide-no-support-from-this-quadriplegic/article_96fd887e-1e47-11e4-8c4c-001a4bcf887a.html

I have read the guest column, "People living with disabilities support death with dignity" (July 25), which advocates for legalizing assisted suicide and/or euthanasia for the disabled. I could be described as such a person and this opinion does not speak for me. I am strongly against legalizing these practices.

When I was in high school, I was on track to get a basketball scholarship to college. And then, I was in a car accident. The accident left me in a wheelchair, a quadriplegic. In addition to my paralysis, I had other difficulties. Over the next two or three years, I gave serious thought to suicide. And I had the means to do it, but both times I got close, I stopped myself.

If instead, my doctor, an authority figure, had told me that ending my life was a rational course, there might have been a different result. If instead, he had given me a lethal dose to ingest or offered to euthanize me, I might have gone along with it. But assisted suicide and euthanasia were not legal in Montana. Such courses were off the table.

So, instead, I went to college to seek a degree in education. While in college, I participated in wheelchair racing at the state, national and international levels. I met my husband and 21 years later the honeymoon is not over. We have three beautiful daughters and a new baby granddaughter. I am also active in my community.

Montana's law protected me and I hope it will stay in place to continue to protect me and others as we go through the sometimes hard times of life.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia should not be legal.

Lucinda Hardy, Columbia Falls

Mother's death provided painful, personal example of need to stop assisted suicide

"Others dictated for her."

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/mother-s-death-provided-painful-personal-example-of-need-to/article_3c8a1d98-1a9c-11e4-bb8e-001a4bcf887a.html

The July 25 guest column by Sara Myers and Dustin Hankinson begins with a discussion of pain, “great pain,” specifically. The paragraph goes on to use the phrase “great pain” to justify “death with dignity,” meaning assisted suicide and euthanasia.

With their column, I couldn’t help but think of my mother’s last years and the decision of others that it was time for her to die. Pain was used as a justification for increases in her medication – to get the job done. This happened three times before she finally died in the hospital on Sept. 6, 2010. The coroner’s report, case No. 100906, lists the cause of death as congestive heart failure with oxygen deprivation and “fentanyl therapy.” The manner of death is listed as “accident.”

"My concerns about legalizing assisted suicide include that it will encourage 'lazy doctoring.'”

http://helenair.com/news/opinion/readers_alley/against-physician-assisted-suicide/article_7b17e3b6-9b57-11e3-ab51-001a4bcf887a.html

I am a general medical practitioner, with 30 years experience. I was glad to see that Montanans Against Assisted Suicide has decided to appeal its case with the Montana Medical Examiner Board to the Montana Supreme Court. My hope is that the appeal will end the controversy about assisted suicide possibly being legal in Montana.

My concerns about legalizing assisted suicide include that it will encourage “lazy doctoring.” I say this because it is easier for a doctor to write a prescription (to end the patient’s life,) as opposed to doing the sometimes hard work of figuring out what is wrong with a patient and providing treatment. I am also concerned that legalization will give bad doctors the opportunity to hide malpractice by convincing a patient to take his or her life.

The American Medical Association, Ethics Opinion No. 2.211, states: “Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.”

I agree with this statement. Allowing legalization of physician-assisted suicide in Montana will compromise and corrupt my profession. Legalization will also put the lives and well-being of my patients at risk.

Carley C. Robertson, MD
Havre MT

Supreme Court must decide suicide issue

http://billingsgazette.com/news/opinion/mailbag/supreme-court-must-decide-suicide-issue/article_93397931-2907-50d1-9c45-774bb42c5a68.html

I have been following the assisted suicide issue closely for the previous several years. I am happy to see that Montanans Against Assisted Suicide is appealing its court case to the Montana Supreme Court. In the past two legislative sessions there have been bills brought before the House and the Senate for and against legalizing assisted suicide. Compassion and Choices [the former Hemlock Society] claims that assisted suicide is already legal in the state (it is not). That false rhetoric has carried to other news mediums, out-of-state legislative bodies and the general public . . . .

We need clarification on this issue once and for all. The Montana Medical Board of Examiners conduct in adopting their position paper, implying that assisted suicide is legal, was a dreadful overstep of its authority, complicated by failing to give public notice regarding the issue.  [See MAAS petition here]

This issue will not go away until the Supreme Court undoes the mess it made with Baxter and resolves the issue by reversing the Baxter decision. The medical profession still has the respect of society. We must not allow that respect to be destroyed by putting this kind of power in the hands of doctors. Doctors can be wrong, yet the doctor is the one who ultimately will decide whether that patient is ready to die or not. This will change medical practice as we know it forever; the trust factor between patient and doctor will be destroyed.

Dr. David W. Hafer
Dayton, MT