I just received the current issue of Life Is Worth Living and I wish it was on line. But there is a web site and I encourage you to visit it.
Now on to my concerns about palliative care. The founder of Life Is Worth Living tells her subscribers this week that everyone who hears about palliative care must beware because a whole lot of hype is going on and everything from living "pain-free" to living a longer life is being promised.
But in Julie Grimstad's opinion, "the foremost concern is that palliative care will become yet another tool in right-to-die's imposed death toolkit."
Lest you think she is merely being negative, let me quote from information posted by Ione Whitlock on the Life Tree site:
There was the awful revelation that many leaders in palliative care were in favor of the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube – an act of euthanasia. LifeTree has recorded some of their statements at http://www.lifetree.org/resources/antischiavo.html
Now, there is deep concern about trends at the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC). The center was founded in 1999 at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City by Drs. Christine Cassel and Diane Meier. It is recognized as the nation’s premier training center for development of palliative care programs in U.S. hospitals. As a result of CAPC’s program, the number of hospital-based palliative care programs has nearly doubled – increasing from 668 in 2000, to 1,240 in 2005. Through CAPC’s Leadership Centers across the United States, over 3,100 health care professionals have been taught CAPC’s methods and ethics.
But the founders of CAPC have long been supporters of physician-assisted suicide. So while their language has changed, the goal remains the same, and that should be a source of concern for anybody who truly wants to fight the ongoing imposition of euthanasia on the old, the frail, the comatose and the critically ill.
I highly recommend that you e-mail
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and ask not only for a copy of her E-Letter 96, but also to become a subscriber.