Have you heard? Hemlock Society recently announced it changed its name to End-of-Life Choices.

Hemlock Society, alias End-of-Life Choices, is an organization that promotes assisted suicide and legalization of euthanasia. It was founded 23 years ago and named after the poisonous weed, hemlock.

On October 5, 2002, I attended an open meeting of the Hemlock Society of the National Capital Area held in the Virginia Beach Central Library.

The guest speaker was Lois Schafer, director of the Hemlock USA’s Caring Friends Program. The goal of this program is to assist human beings in the act of killing themselves (suicide) and to lobby legislatures to legalize euthanasia. Throughout her speech, Ms. Schafer used the euphemisms “hastened death,” “dignified death,” and “peaceful death” instead of suicide, the precise and correct word.

Ms. Schafer claimed that suicide is the act of an irrational, unstable person but the individuals provided assistance in hastening their death (suicide) by the Hemlock Society’s Caring Friends Program are rational and stable. In other words, Ms. Schafer claimed that if a person commits suicide without the help of Hemlock Society they’re irrational. If they commit suicide with the help of Hemlock Society’s, they’re rational.

What does the Caring Friends Program offer human beings? Good Samaritans they are not.

For a person with Alzheimer’s Disease, Ms. Schafer recommended permitting meal trays to be brought to the patient’s room but always having a family member or friend stand guard to assure that the patient is not tempted to eat by a caring nursing home staff member. She called insertion of feeding tubes “battery” and advised that family and friends should go to the hospital’s office for legal affairs and threaten to sue if a hospital insists on tube feeding a patient out of fear of a lawsuit.

Ms. Schafer listed a number of criteria for acceptance into Hemlock Society’s Caring Friends Program. The applicant must be a member of the Hemlock Society, be suffering a hopeless illness, be willing to submit in writing or dictate to the program operators a statement about how one’s illness is affecting their quality of life, be willing to learn “methods,” be able to get “equipment” or medication, be able to self-deliver, be able to enlist family members to help. Anyone in the audience who wanted clarification of the words “methods and equipment” was told to speak privately with Ms. Schafer.

A panel consisting of a retired doctor, retired nurse, social worker and a clergyman decides if Caring Friends will “assist an individual in dying” (committing suicide). The panel’s purpose is to weed out people who “can’t keep a low profile,” Ms. Schafer said.

Once in the grasp of the Hemlock Society, the person seeking assisted suicide is directed to dismiss his or her attending physician.

Ms. Schafer explained that the reason for requiring family members’ presence at the suicide is to avoid a botched “hastened death” (suicide) and to take care of such things as the death certificate and funeral home. A man in the audience was introduced as one who would recommend a funeral director. I surmised that the funeral director he’d recommend would be one who would keep the cause of death, assisted suicide, secret.

Ms. Schafer’s speech was laced with “probablies.” For instance, she said, you should “probably have reached the age of majority”, leaving the door wide open for assisting minors who say they want to die. And they “probably” wouldn’t take money from somebody wanting to kill himself or herself.

Hemlock Society, alias End-of-Life Choices, members are encouraged to file a Living Will with the society and to have non-hospital and pre-hospital Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders in writing.

Each time I scanned the audience, the majority of whom were senior citizens, I felt a deep sadness. I wondered how many were ill and feeling life was something not worth living, or healthy and fearing natural death. Excerpts from a letter I received eight and a half years ago raced through my mind: “I don’t want to be a vegetable. I’m ready to die.” That was before, at death’s door, the writer agreed to empower good doctors to perform a second heart valve transplant operation on him. Since then he has attended the weddings of six grandchildren, cradled seven great-grandchildren in his arms, traveled home and abroad, and celebrated his 90th birthday. Fortunately, he didn’t have a Living Will when, struggling for breath, he was admitted to a hospital where he fell into the hands of Good Samaritans, doctors and nurses who offered hope, not “hemlock,” and revived his will to live. He fell into the hands of doctors and nurses who don’t discriminate against the elderly and medically dependent.

National Right to Life Committee and its Virginia affiliate, Virginia Society for Human Life, encourage everyone to sign a “Will to Live.” A “Will to Live” makes it possible to Choose Life over death. The “Will to Live” for Virginia is available on the NRLC web site, www.nrlc.org, or from the VSHL office. VSHL has videos and tapes available for those wishing to learn more about the evils of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Published in VSHL Lifesaver, August 2003