Opinion
Sam Aanestad calls the California Right to Know End-of-Life Options Act an unnecessary “intrusion” into the doctor-patient relationship.
At Compassion and Choices, the nation’s largest end-of-life choice organization, we see things differently. We know talking about death won’t kill you. If patients aren’t ready to hear the truth, they won’t ask for it. No one should force an unwelcome conversation, but the Right to Know Act doesn’t do that. When patients do ask, they want and deserve accurate, complete information. And then, no one should keep it from them.
The Right to Know End-of-Life Options Act (AB 2747), written by Assembly members Patty Berg and Lloyd Levine, passed the California Legislature and now awaits the governor’s signature. This landmark law simply requires that when a terminally ill person asks about end-of-life options, doctors tell them about all legal choices. Aanestad asserts patients don’t need this kind of information and claims it would do more harm than good. Well, let’s allow patients to make that decision for themselves.
Compassion and Choices sponsored the Right to Know Act because we know dying patients may suffer greatly without crucial information. We also know people with end-stage cancer may suffer through rigorous, futile chemotherapy treatments weeks or even days before death because they think they have no choice. Doctors are not always straightforward about the true prognosis and offer false hope. As a result, treatments can leave patients too weak for spending quality time with loved ones, rectifying relationships or seeking spiritual peace. When patients have full information about all of their options, they are empowered to knowingly choose – or refuse – difficult treatment.
Research is on our side. The May issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology reported terminal patients who have an end-of-life discussion with their physician are more likely to receive hospice care and less likely to enter an Intensive Care Unit.
Another recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association lists study after study showing that oncologists often continue aggressive chemotherapy long after it is likely to extend life.
Aanestad seems to believe that withholding this crucial information is a humane way to deal with people who are dying. As an organization working with the dying for 28 years, we know information and counseling regarding end-of-life care options is essential to the comfort and peace of many terminally ill patients and their families. These poignant conversations help patients weigh all options and make an informed decision that reflects their values and beliefs. It gives the physician an opportunity for a heartfelt discussion of the benefits and risks of all available treatments, and it can facilitate earlier access to hospice care.
AB 2747 does all of these things. It offers peace and comfort to patients and their families who want to know more. This is why we urge Gov. Schwarzenneger to sign the bill. Knowledge won’t kill you, but cancer will. How can we withhold the information that can bring so much comfort and peace of mind to those deciding how to spend their last days on earth?
Barbara Coombs Lee is president of Compassion and Choices, a nonprofit group focused on end-of-life issues.
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- Written by: Barbara Coombs Lee
We all know that politicians exaggerate, embellish and enhance their stories. And sometimes, we suspect, they outright lie, which isn't very smart in this age of electronic record-keeping.
McCain-Palin supporters are trying to pass her off as a feminist with statements like this: "Palin's candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change." (Article at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/06/INB312NP3M.DTL&type=politics)
Being a working mother and being elected to office do not make you a feminist. Hard-working, ambitious – yes. Not necessarily a feminist. The essence of feminism is refusing to tolerate victimization of women in any area – economic, social, health, education, opportunity.
The GOP team would work to ban all abortion, "even in the case of rape," Sarah Palin said. There is no area where women have been more victimized than in rape. Rape cases are seriously under-reported because the survivors are unwilling to face the common disbelief, and the subsequent trial, when their entire life history might be put on display and questioned as if they were the person on trial.
A friend tells me that when she was raped and beaten nearly to death 30 years ago in Vallejo, the detective handling the case said to her, "A woman can run faster with her skirt up than a man can run with his pants down around his ankles." That's a fairly mild example of the disdain, disbelief and humiliation that women reporting rape often have to endure.
Palin did her best to increase the victimization while she was mayor of the small town of Wasilla, Alaska, from 1996 to 2002.
A story in the Mat-Su Frontiersman on May 23, 2000, reported that Wasilla was charging women who reported being raped $300 to $1,200 for the forensic exam kit used in the investigations. It was picked up by America Blog (http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/wasilla-charged-rape-victims-for-their.html) a couple of days ago and has since been reported on television.
Alaska Governor Tony Knowles had signed legislation protecting victims of sexual assault from being billed for tests to collect evidence of the crime. The Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies covered the cost of exams, but Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon didn't agree with the new legislation. He said the new law would cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases. He was Palin's appointee, after she fired the former chief who didn't fully support the policies.
The Anchorage Daily News reported that at the time the city was paying a lobbyist, hired by Palin, $40,500 yearly to seek earmark funding in Washington, DC (www.adn.com/sarah-palin/background/story/194505.html).
Spin me any yarn you want about what a good mother she is, how she managed to fight the Good Ol' Boys while getting their support, why she had to charge the state for overnights in her own home (a 30-mile commute from her state office in Anchorage) or why she even bothered to talk to the city librarian about banning books – just don't try to tell me she's a feminist, OK?
Sophie Annan Jensen is a retired journalist. She lives in Lucerne.
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- Written by: Sophie Annan Jensen
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