Elizabeth (Bettty) Wickham, Ph.D.
Executive Director, LifeTree, Inc.
919-785-0855
PO Box 17301
Raleigh, NC, 27619
Contact: joyinlife@earthlink.net
Website:http://www.lifetree.org
Beware of medicine's newest craze: palliative care. The hype has only just begun. We have seen an article in AARP Magazine, and a column in the New York Times; and like old Doc Kilmer peddling his Swamp Root Remedy, palliative care's promoters are promising everything from no pain to longer life. But palliative care, if not properly understood, can be deadly. The foremost concern is that palliative care will become yet another tool in right-to-die's imposed death toolkit.
Date posted: 2008-02-02
Pope John Paul II's 2001 address to the International Congress of the Transplantation Society insists there be moral certainty that death has occurred before the transplantation of any unpaired vital organ. Unfortunately, in medicine today determination of death (brain death and non-heart beating death) set standard which are much less stringent than the Holy Father's guidelines.
Date posted: 2008-02-02
The North Carolina General Assembly began a new biennium two weeks ago. Over the course of the last two years I have watched the North Carolina General Assembly conduct hearings on whether the state of North Carolina should support embryonic stem cell research. There is no doubt that North Carolina has been targeted as a pivotal state. Unfortunately, the media has largely been silent. But we know that controversial legislation is often passed without fanfare on purpose. Once established, statutes are much more difficult to change.
Date posted: 2007-03-05
The POST/POLST form is a "glide path" to euthanasia. The POST/POLST form extends the Do Not Resuscitate order into orders about medical treatment, antibiotics, and IV fluids/artificial Nutrition and Hydration (ANH).
Date posted: 2006-07-26
We concluded that even though the message was cast in terms of "improving how people die" the real message was about changing the "default" in health care to withdrawal of life-saving treatment. In other words, patients and families were counseled to err on the side of death, rather than on the side of life.
Date posted: 2006-07-26
Purpose: Research on right-to-die funding in America indicates that there has been a systematic effort from bioethics centers, foundations, and universities within the country to change the American culture to a more death-accepting society. The program has resulted in mainstreaming ideas and policies once thought controversial, but which are now commonplace in textbooks, accreditation policies, professional practice, and popular culture.
Date posted: 2005-03-19