“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”

                                     __ Barack Obama, August 19, 2009

There is a crosscurrent in our society at present which seeks to ebb tide the individual rights of our citizens. This is best epitomized in the government’s efforts to have our senior citizens commit to end of life care plans under the guise of compassion.

Dr. Robert Pearlman, a Fellow of the Program for Ethics and the Professions at Harvard University, does not disappoint my circumspection of his pedigree. Currently, he serves in the Veterans Administration as a senior ethicist. In 1997 he co-authored a pamphlet called Your Life, Your Choices with fellow ethicist Helene Starks, PhD among others. This was to be the blueprint for end of life counseling for the entire Veterans Administration Health System until it was rescinded by President George W. Bush. The Obama administration is pressing for its reinstatement.

Dr. Pearlman and Dr. Starks most likely constructed their pamphlet through the prism of a study they did together and published in the October 1, 1997 edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine entitled: “Validation of Life Preferences for Life Sustaining Treatment: Implications for Advanced Care Planning.” This study was designed to prove that end of life choices made in advance concurred with the choices patient made when they actually became ill. This project was grossly flawed. The study was completed in Seattle, Washington and the authors admit that whites and college educated participants were over-represented. Almost half of the participants were lost at 3 months in the 18 month study, 83 of them due to death. Therefore, many of the sicker patients were unavailable.

When respondent’s choices did not concur with their earlier decisions they were re-interviewed and pressured to change their minds. Two-thirds of them succumbed to the pressure and reverted to their original stance. This was the data used in the final results.

When reading “Your Life, Your Choices” the negativity toward the attitude of choosing medical treatment and life over death is palpable. The language used to describe medical treatments is intimidating and onerous. I tried to imagine what the Advanced Care Directives of a monstrous government-run health system would look like and I think I just read the preamble.

In the same year that Dr. Pearlman was cobbling together his pamphlet (which is colloquially referred to as the “VA Death Book”) another physician, Dr. Timothy Quill was having his case for physician assisted suicide heard before the Supreme Court of the United States. Known as Vacco, Attorney General of New York v. Quill; it is a landmark decision regarding issues of the right to die movement. Dr Quill and three terminally ill patients were suing the state of New York for an alleged violation of their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution by banning physician assisted suicide. The ruling was 9-0 against Dr. Quill. Sources say Dr. Pearlman testified in favor of physician assisted suicide in that case. This would place him in libertine company.

There is a frightening subculture in this country that advocates death over life. It is best represented by the group Compassion and Care, formerly known as the Hemlock Society. Politically active, they proudly post their hurrahs for helping Washington state become the second state to pass physician assisted suicide legislation. They unsurprisingly support HR 3200. Where will this all lead? Let’s go back to the roots of their belief system.

Derek Humphry, one of the Hemlock Society founders, wrote the following in his book, Final Exit: “What can those of us who sympathize with a justified suicide by a handicapped person do to help? When we have statutes on the books permitting lawful physician aid in dying for the terminally ill, I believe that along with this reform there will come a more tolerant attitude to the other exceptional cases.” It would appear Mr. Humphry also believes in suicide for elderly people who are not ill. From the same book, Chapter Twenty: Going Together-“Some couples choose to die together regardless of whether both are in poor health or only one…That the couple would wish to die together is a tribute to the strength of a loving relationship.”

First, they have to get the doctors to be sympathetic to this undertaking. That is what they are relying on, doctors like Quill and Pearlman. Then they will only need men and women who think they are God’s partners.