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Friday, October 9, 2009

The Devil is in the Details: Pharmicists in Washington Required to Prescribe Death Drugs

Dial 911 for suicide assistance? by Rita Marker

Assisted suicied is legal in Washington state, but the community is just beginning to learn what that means. For one thing, freedom to choose is non-existent at the local drug store. If someone wants the deadly cocktail, the pharmacist is required to provide it.

[The assisted suicide law] provides immunity for those who do not participate. This led those who own pharmacies to assume that they would not have to dispense assisted suicide drugs.

They were wrong.

In the law, "participation" is very narrowly defined. It only refers to those activities that constitute the duties of the attending physician, the consulting physician or the counselor under the law. It does not include dispensing drugs.

Pharmacy owners who assumed they could opt out were very much mistaken. Not only does the assisted-suicide law not give them the right to refuse to dispense a prescription for assisted suicide, but the Washington Administrative Code positively requires all pharmacies to deliver and distribute all lawfully prescribed drugs or devices to patients. That requirement was affirmed in July when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Stormans v. Selecky vacated a preliminary injunction preventing its enforcement.


That's not all. The law requires medical personnel to HIDE the cause of death in the event the individual gets assisted in death by Compassion and Choices (former Hemlock Society, a euthanasia organization):
The word games continue even after the patient dies from physician-assisted suicide. If she had taken pills that she stockpiled on her own, her death certificate would reflect that the cause of death was a barbiturate overdose and the manner of death was "suicide." However, if she is a C & C facilitated death, the state forbids any hint of that on her death certificate. Instructions from the Washington Department of Health make it crystal clear that doctors, coroners and others must refer to her underlying illness, not the drug overdose, as the cause of death and the manner of death must be listed as "natural." According to the Washington State Department of Health, "The cause of death section may not contain any language that indicates that the Death with Dignity Act was used."


Prolifers predicted in 1973 that Roe v. Wade would lead to euthanasia. The death march moves on. They've killed the children who would care for the elderly and pay the taxes to support them. Now the sites are aimed at Grandma. But they will hide what they are doing the same way they hid legal abortion deaths as "medical misadventures" or anasthesia-related.

If you aren't praying the rosary, now would be a good time to start.

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