Edmonton: Court decision on end-of-life treatment for Muslim patriarch

Description:

Sixty-four year old Samir Sweiss was dying in hospital while on a ventilator, and had evidence of basic reflex brain function. Sweiss had signed a directive that he wanted all Islamic law followed in his care. Health officials decided it was time to remove the ventilator, and issued a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order.

The family asked a judge to reverse the officials' decision, on the grounds that Islamic sharia law dictates life-support should continue until brain function stops completely. The judge immediately issued a temporary injunction continuing use of the ventilator. Later, during the hearing process, the family agreed to remove the ventilator, as Sweiss became able to breathe without it. The judge refused to remove the DNR order, after medical evidence convinced him that performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation would actually harm Sweiss. Sweiss died eight days later.

[Editor's note: EuthaNEWSia will appear irregularly for the next two weeks. All the stories will appear eventually, but many will be in the Overflow section.]

[Note: Some other recent stories related to this topic are in the Links: section below.]

[Note: there are stories in the Overflow: section below.]

Links:

To read the full article click on one of these links, both of which go to the same destination. A short link is provided for the convenience of readers. Also, readers may search and browse past advisories on the web (see bottom.)

  • http://tinyurl.com/yc2srue

  • http://www.edmontonjournal.com/life/Court+backs+sharia+Muslim+patriarch/2319342/story.html

    Also see:

  • Ontario: Death with Dignity [The Barrie Examiner]
    http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2220781

    Valerie Gardner writes about the difference that access to palliative care makes, and about the difficulty of obtaining it: Thanks to the palliative doctor and nurses, I was spared having to stand by and watch helplessly as mom suffered. She was spared another ambulance ride to hospital, where in all probability, she would have died in a crowded, noisy, brightly lit emergency room. Instead, her transition from life to death took place quietly at home. It was gentle, calm and serene. It was pain free and beautiful.

  • New Brunswick: Seniors separate "on a regular basis" to afford care [CBC News]
    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2009/12/15/nb-seniors-separate-537.html

    Senior New Brunswick couples commonly get divorced or legally separated so they can afford nursing home care, says a seniors advocate. As more people enter nursing homes, Veronica Ratchford, a representative from the Coalition for Seniors and Nursing Home Residents' Rights, said an increasing number of couples are legally splitting up so they can get government help with the cost of that care.

  • Canada: Issue is literally a matter of life and death [Brantford Expositor]
    http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2218688

    David Dean writes a thoughtful piece on how public opinion in Canada is slowly turning in favour of euthanasia. While personally opposed to it, he recognizes that past attitudes have been conditioned by traditional religious teaching, and says: Attitudes and beliefs these days seem to be founded more in the context of individual rights than values that have been shaped by religious teaching. Perhaps we do have the right to terminate our own life in certain circumstances.

Source:

Sands, Andrea. "Court backs sharia law for Muslim patriarch". Edmonton Journal, Canwest. December 9, 2009. <www.edmontonjournal.com/life/Court+backs+sharia+Muslim+patriarch/2319342/story.html>. The Edmonton Journal, 10006 - 101 Street, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T5J 0S1. Copyright 2008 - 2009 Canwest Publishing Inc. All rights reserved.

Tags:

Tags (or keywords) briefly indicate some major topics of the report.

  • life support

  • judicial decision

  • Islam

  • Alberta

  • Canada

Overflow:

Stories that EuthaNEWSia did not get to:

  • Britain: Suicide pact man defends decision [BBC News]
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/8415986.stm

    A terminally ill man from Somerset has spoken about the failed suicide pact he made with his wife. Dr Willie Stanton, 79, said he and his wife Angela, 74, who was found dead at their home in Westbury-sub-Mendip, did not want to be separated. "What we did… was entirely reasonable for two rational, non-religious people who'd reached the end of their lives, which they'd enjoyed so much", he said.

  • Belgium: Charges against GP dropped in Ostend deaths [Expatica.com]
    http://www.expatica.com/be/news/belgian-news/Charges-against-GP-dropped-in-Ostend-deaths_58715.html

    A Bruges magistrate has thrown out a case against a GP from Ostend who stood accused of five-fold murder. The charges related to the deaths of five demented patients. The GP faced charges because he had administered morphine to these five patients in his care…. The doctor's lawyer told the VRT that the magistrate concluded that the doctor had acted to alleviate pain. In certain cases administering pain relief can have a life-shortening effect, but the doctor's only intention was to address the patients' pain. [Thanks to World right-to-die news list for the alert on this story.]

  • India: Judges consider comatose rape victim's right to die [Times Online]
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6960935.ece

    Ms Virani wants the court to issue instructions to "ensure that no food is fed", an act that is at present outlawed. Previous pleas for euthanasia on behalf of coma victims have been rejected. However, while the Supreme Court initially issued a notice stating that "under the law of the country, we cannot allow a person to die" it has since suggested that withholding food from Ms Shanbaug might not be considered euthanasia, since "her life is worse than animal existence". It has ordered a medical evaluation of her condition.

  • Australia: Net filters "thin end of the wedge": Kirby [The Sydney Morning Herald]
    http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/net-filters-thin-end-of-the-wedge-kirby-20091217-kym9.html

    Former High Court judge Michael Kirby has criticised the Federal Government's internet censorship agenda … In an interview with Fairfax Radio this morning, Kirby said some circles feared the controversial policy would be "the thin end of the wedge of the Government moving in to regulating the actual internet itself". "Once you start doing that you get into the situation of Burma and Iran where the Government is taking control of what people hear and what information they get," he said, adding that Australia's approach hadn't been attempted anywhere else in the world.

    Meanwhile, President of the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, Michael Cope, today said the internet filter could threaten "the search for truth, democracy, self realisation and autonomy for individuals".

    Most experts agree that Conroy's policy will not result in any meaningful dent in the availability of harmful internet content, will create significant freedom of speech issues and will be prone to abuse by politicians. Almost 20,000 people have voted in smh.com.au's poll on internet censorship and 96 per cent of respondents oppose the filters, which the Government itself has admitted could be easily bypassed and do not cover peer-to-peer, instant messaging or other communications protocols. Nearly 120,000 Australians signed a petition against internet censorship by online activist group GetUp.

  • Britain: Times euthanasia poll of MPs is "out of date" [The Christian Institute]
    http://www.christian.org.uk/news/times-euthanasia-poll-of-mps-is-out-of-date/

    The Christian Institute says that the poll reported in Wednesday's EuthaNEWSia was out of date at the time of publication, because the survey was carried out in June and July. And: The poll, reported by The Times on its front page on Wednesday, was commissioned by Dignity in Dying, a pro-euthanasia organisation…. But since July several new developments have come to light which may have shifted opinion.

  • Netherlands: new book on history and practice of Euthanasia revives debate [The World Federation of Right to Die Societies]
    http://worldrtd.net/node/935

    This is a better version of EuthaNEWSia's Dec. 3 story: Euthanasia law is no cure-all for Dutch doctors.

  • USA: New Final Exit Network's newsletter discusses law on helping to die [Assisted-Suicide Blog, Derek Humphry]
    http://assistedsuicide.org/blog/2009/12/16/new-final-exit-networks-newsletter-discusses-law-on-helping-to-die/

    Derek Humphry writes: [,,.9]_For an update on the legal position of the 8 volunteers of the Final Exit Network facing prosecutions in Georgia and Arizona read the December 09 issue, just out, of the Final Exit Network's newsletter on the web at this link: http://www.finalexitnetwork.org/Newsletters-12-09-on/Final_Exit_Newsletter_Vol_6_No_1-3%20for%20Web.pdf. Robert Rivas, the Network Legal Advisor, explains that there is no legal precedent for the charges.

  • Britain: "My brother took his own life at Dignitas — his life was in torment" [Times Online]
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6958188.ece

    Lesley Close recounts the story of her musician brother, John; his diagnosis of motor neuron disease at age 53; and his resolve to end his life at Dignitas when the disease progressed rapidly. On the Monday morning Mr Close and family members flew to Zurich. They were met at the airport by Ludwig Minelli, founder of the clinic, and driven by ambulance taxi to his home to complete the paperwork, then on to the city centre flat for the drugs to be administered. "At every stage it was made clear that turning back was an option…. "

  • Canada: Latimer leave approved with a reminder to follow rules [CBC News]
    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2009/12/16/sk-latimer-leave-parole-board-91216.html

    Robert Latimer is getting an extended leave from his halfway house in British Columbia, but not without a chiding from the national parole board. Latimer, 56, is the Saskatchewan man convicted of second-degree murder for killing his severely disabled daughter…. The parole board said it had no concerns about Latimer being in the community.

  • Britain: Assisted suicide: disabled should not be allowed legally to kill themselves [Telegraph]
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6818636/Assisted-suicide-disabled-should-not-be-allowed-legally-to-kill-themselves.html

    In a submission to a consultation on relaxing the rules on assisted suicide - which ends today - a coalition of five disabled groups, said that "to see suicide as the right solution is to abandon hope. Severely ill and terminally ill people do no deserve society to give up on them." The group, which is lead by Baroness Campbell, accused others who were pushing for the change as "seeking to change the law by the back door by creating the impression that those who assist in a suicide will be immune from prosecution".

  • Australia: Suicide pills for Christmas presents - Dr Philip Nitschke [The Herald Sun]
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/suicide-pills-for-christmas-presents/story-e6frf7l6-1225811150633

    The Herald Sun reports that Dr Philip Nitschke said that: A so-called "peaceful pill" is being developed from Nembutal, a drug commonly used by vets to put down animals, but not available to humans in Australia. Instead, many elderly or sick people are being forced to travel to Mexico, where the drug is freely available. While the present liquid form has an expiry date, Dr Nitschke said the pill being developed could sit for years and was easy to smuggle into the country.

  • Australia: Doctors' group warns against suicide tablet [ABC News]
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/16/2773057.htm

    In current workshops, Dr Philip Nitschke is discussing a new pill being developed overseas, which can be reconstituted into a liquid which is a fatal dose of medication. Medical association president Dr Philip Morris says the medication is dangerous. "The idea that the medication might be taken by others, children … it's a very dangerous medication that clearly if you take a lot of it it can kill you," he said. "The other problem of course is that if people are choosing to do that then they may not have the right dose so they may end up still alive but severely brain damaged."

  • Australia: Euthanasia advocate backs "light" sentence [ABC News, Australia]
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/16/2773599.htm

    Maria Clark was given a two-year wholly suspended sentence for choking her comatose mother in a Ballarat nursing home, in central Victoria, last December. In sentencing, Justice Lex Lasry said Clark sought to end her mother's suffering. Dr Nitschke, who heads the organisation Exit International, says he wishes politicians would show as much compassion as the courts. "Well I think it's another example where the courts are acting compassionately in a situation where the law really gives little leeway or flexibility," he said.

  • Switzerland: New Dignitas premises approved [World Radio Switzerland]
    http://worldradio.ch/wrs/news/wrsnews/new-dignitas-premises-approved.shtml?17171

    A court has decided that Dignitas may use its new premises in the canton of Wetzikon, near Zurich, to operate its clinic. Local officials had refused permission on the grounds that the operation of the clinic would cause harm to the community.

  • West Virginia: Neighbor says homicide, suicide victim was "despondent" [WVVA]
    http://www.wvva.com/global/story.asp?s=11675062

    According to Beckley Police, an 80-year-old male took the life of his wife Monday morning then committed suicide. The incident reportedly occurred on Tolley Drive in the Maxwell Hill area of Beckley. Neighbors say the wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and the strain of caring for her became too much for her husband.

  • "Mercy killing" father given lenient sentence [The China Post]
    http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2009/12/13/236288/Mercy-killing.htm

    A father, surnamed Yen, 57, was given two years and six months for strangling his 21-year-old son, who had been rejected by a home for the mentally challenged because of his violent behavior and incapability of taking care of himself. According to the report, last year the father reasoned that he and his wife were ageing and could not be around to take care of the son for long. After their death, no one would take care of the son. The father then killed the son and turned himself in to police.

  • UK: Assisted suicide should never be just another choice [Daily Mail]
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-1235351/Assisted-suicide-just-choice.html

    Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, states his opposition to assisted suicide.

ID:

The EuthaNEWSia ID for this advisory is: enid200912185491.
Mailed: Friday, December 18, 2009 14:48:48 -0600
at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Etcetera:

EuthaNEWSia is a free Canadian news advisory service covering end-of-life issues such as right to die, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. EuthaNEWSia is produced by the Right to Die Society of Canada which works toward a good death for all, including open, regulated and equitable access to euthanasia and assisted suicide. The editor is Michael Dawson <editor@euthanewsia.ca>. 

-------------------------------------------------------------

EuthaNEWSia mailing list

To SUBSCRIBE send a message to:

euthanewsia-subscribe@euthanewsia.ca
SUBJECT and TEXT may be left blank

To UNSUBSCRIBE send a message to:

euthanewsia-unsubscribe@euthanewsia.ca
SUBJECT and TEXT may be left blank 

-------------------------------------------------------------

On the Web:

Problems? Send an email to: editor@euthanewsia.ca