The Potential and Peril of Assisted Suicide

For every prohibition you create, you also create an underground.  Jello Biafra (musician)

The subject of assisted suicide is painful to think about – and very controversial, as I have found out.

         I hadn’t intended to research assisted suicide. It was a bargain bin that seduced me, offering A Chosen Death: The Dying Confront Assisted Suicide for fifty cents. It turned out to be a well-spent pittance, informing me about this contentious area.

         Although the book is now out of print, I thought that it was worth reviewing. (It’s available as a used book on amazon.ca.) Its author, Lonny Shavelson, follows five individuals wrestling with illness and disability, all wanting assisted suicide from a doctor, relative or friend if the pain gets too severe. Interwoven with personal experiences are details of the larger picture.

         Shavelson begins his exploration of physician assisted suicide (PAS), which is illegal in Canada and most states south of the border, with details from his own life. His pre-ordained role in life, he was taught, was to become a doctor and find a cure for his mother’s disease. If that didn’t work, he was to give her a fatal injection of potassium chloride.

         “In the household of my childhood, my mother simply assumed it would be appropriate for me, the son, to help end her life when she decided she was ready. As a child, I thought this was a common family arrangement.”

         This pressure affected Shavelson, sending him into a depression of his own. Although he left home at sixteen, he did become a doctor, and later, a journalist. In his early forties, he was thrown into awareness of the controversy about PAS when Dr. Jack Kevorkian was arrested for assisting suicide – and Final Exit by Derek Humphrey, a how-to-manual for suicide, sold 520,000 copies.

         “I realized that, secretly, in darkened bedrooms across the country, thousands of parents, children, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, lovers and friends were deciding whether or not to aid in the death of a loved one,” writes Shavelson.

         The first story is about Renee, a young woman who developed brain cancer that metastasized to her lymph nodes. When she felt she had had enough suffering, she took a certain medicine (we’re not told which one) and some vodka to strengthen the effect. Unfortunately, she was still alive many hours later. Shavelson had to decide whether to leave her in a coma or help to finish the suicide. He declines to be explicit, stating, “Euthanasia is a capital crime.” In resonating with hundreds of other families who have struggled with similar decisions, he concludes, “this is not how it should be.”

         Pierre was a gay man with AIDS. The unusual part of his situation was that gay men in California were not arrested for assisting suicide. While Dr. Kevorkian was being prosecuted in Michigan, gay suicide helpers in California could openly assist with no fear of arrest. “Isolated by a society that had rejected them, gays were making their own rules – especially about death and dying,” says Shavelson. He notes that gay men suffering from AIDS exchanged recipes of lethal drug combinations the way women exchange recipes for coffee cake.

         Even though assisted suicide was available to him, Pierre kept putting it off. He threatened suicide if he ever became bed-ridden or had to use oxygen, but when these conditions actualized, he would shift the criteria to avoid “doing it” that day. Shavelson calls this the “moving line in the sand” that terminally ill patients often use. Pierre died in his sleep, knowing that he could have assistance if he wanted it.

         Interwoven with the stories are many philosophical points, the pros and cons of legalizing assisted suicide:

•         If physician assisted suicide becomes legal, will doctors spend the time to determine whether patients requesting that service are temporarily depressed or are indeed suffering unbearable pain? Some fear giving the doctors this power will enable them to either act too quickly or refuse a valid request.

•         Will poor and handicapped people be unnecessarily euthanized? Will rich elderly patients be pushed into death by greedy relatives? These are concerns voiced by the anti-assisted suicide forces. The subject has become polarized between “Right to Life” and “Die With Dignity” camps.

•         Shavelson points out that abuses of assisted suicide do exist today. “In the absence of legally available aid from physicians,” he writes, “abuses are occurring at the hands of unregulated freelance euthanasists, illegal suppliers meeting an otherwise unmet demand.”

•         Shavelson claims that the public supports physician assisted suicide. “… opinion polls have repeatedly shown that some two-thirds of the public favours the right of people with terminal illnesses to end their lives, and to have professional help to do it.” He also claims that up to 37 percent of doctors surveyed have admitted to aiding in the death of a terminally ill patient.

         The Hemlock Society is one of many “right to die” organizations that provide literature, meetings, and conferences about assisted suicide – and details of the various methods of “self-deliverance.” Although Hemlock says that members do not provide counseling or end-of-life assistance, no effort is made to police the membership. Shavelson details the actions of one Hemlock member who provided lethal drugs to a sick man – and then, when he decided he wanted to live – forced him to go through with the suicide. Hemlock was notified of her behaviour but nothing was done about it.

Palliative care groups wrestle with PAS

In A Chosen Death, Shavelson reports the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) as being against Physician Assisted Suicide. The whole hospice movement took a vehement position against clients even talking about the possibility. If a hospice worker heard that a client might be considering assisted suicide, that client was cut off palliative care services.

         Since Chosen Death was written, things have changed. Because the Canadian Hospice and Palliative Care Association changed its position from prohibition to one of “studied neutrality,” the Americans followed suit. In their statement to the media in February of 2007, the AAHPM recognized “sincere, compassionate, morally conscientious individuals” on either side of the debate. “[Our] members should … continue to strive to find the proper response to those patients whose suffering becomes intolerable despite the best possible palliative care,” AAHPM claimed.

         Another change: instead of PAS (physician assisted suicide), many groups are using PAD (physician assisted dying). The workers in favour of legalizing this area felt that PAD was a more marketable term, a softer verbal landing spot for a distressing topic.

Spirits may need help to move on

There’s one aspect of assisted death that people might not be aware of. I have learned from other books that when a person dies naturally of illness or old age, the body gives off a “signal,” alerting spirit helpers on the other side to come and assist with the transition. There’s a chance that in an assisted suicide, the signal would not be given off and the spirit would be stranded on the earth plane. We call such spirits "mind-set spirits" or ghosts.

         One solution I have read about is for family and friends to light a candle and pray for the spirit of the deceased, asking that he or she receive the help needed to go to the light. Perhaps a priest performing last rites for a person intending assisted suicide would help the spirit as well. This could be an area for right-to-die groups to look into, providing spiritual counseling and end-of-life spiritual ceremonies when requested.

         I emailed Lonny Shavelson to ask if he and his subjects had discussed belief in the afterlife. Here’s his response: “I don't recall any focus on the afterlife (or lack of it) in my conversations with the folks in the book. Although I'm sure we talked about that, the focus was distractingly on the details of ‘how can I get there in as dignified a way as possible,’ much more so than ‘what happens once I'm there.’          

         “That, again, is one of the sad things of having dying people and their families in isolation deal with planning, dosages, timing, comfort, etc. when they could be exploring the more profound aspects of their deaths and whatever may follow.”

                                        * * *** * *

In A Chosen Death, Lonny Shavelson has provided a thought-provoking exploration of assisted suicide. He makes a good case for allowing it to be legalized. One of the safeguards he recommends is that of having two physicians examine the patient, and to consider medical and psychological help before approving assisted suicide. He suggests that an attempt at regulation, although there might be some abuses, would be better than the unregulated mixture of amateur attempts that we have now.

Anna Olson is a Winnipeg freelance writer and editor specializing in the study of spirituality and metaphysics. If you have comments or suggestions for future articles, email her at annols@mts.net.

Respect Past Life Memories: A New Concept for Childcare

By Anna Olson

Unfortunately nothing in our culture prepares parents for this moment. On the contrary, everything in our culture teaches that children’s past life memories are impossible.

          from Children’s Past Lives by Carol Bowman

IN THE BOOK, Children’s Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child, author Carol Bowman proposes instructing parents and childcare givers on how to listen to children’s past life memories if and when they emerge. She feels that scientists (details below) have adequately proven the validity of past life memories, and now the question is how to put this knowledge to good use.

       Bowman suggests that remembering past lives could be “a natural part of our soul’s development, an opportunity to clear issues from the past.” She details cases where a person’s problems in this life refused to clear up until a relevant past life was revealed. Perhaps “parents are part of the plan for helping our children benefit from spontaneous past life memories,” she says.

       But first, how do you know when a child is having a genuine past life memory versus spinning a tale? Bowman gives four signs to look for: a matter-of-fact tone, consistency over time, knowledge beyond experience, and corresponding behaviour and traits.

       Bowman, mother of Chase and Sarah, describes how she stumbled into the surreal world of past life memories. Four-year-old Chase had an intense fear of loud noises that had no relation to trauma in his life so far. When Carol met a regression therapist who helped clients remember past lives, she asked him to work with Chase in case there was a past life aspect to the boy’s fear. There was. Chase recounted a time when he was a soldier and was surrounded by canons going off. After reliving that past life, Chase’s fear of loud noises diminished.

       That was the start of Bowman’s immersion into the subject of reincarnation. She read all she could, and took a week-long workshop on receiving and assisting regressions. She saw how her past lives reflected some of the difficulties she had in the present, and she also became more adept at helping others access their memories.

Reincarnation controversy

       If past lives are real, then reincarnation, whereby the soul returns to earth in a different body over and over again, is real. Reincarnation is a touchy subject as the Western world is largely Christian with its belief in one life only; you die, and then your soul goes to heaven or hell for eternity. It’s a challenge for parents who believe the Christian dogma to be suddenly confronted with a child claiming to having lived before.

       Bowman doesn’t go into depth on the religious aspect in her book; she focuses instead on the proof for reincarnation, how to handle children’s revelations, and the healing aspect for children and grown-ups alike. (On her website, www.childpastlives.org, click “library” for Bowman’s article, “Reincarnation and the Early Christian Church.”)

       For proof, Bowman points to the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, head of the psychology department, University of Virginia School of Medicine. He wrote Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation and Children Who Remember Past Lives. Dr. Stevenson limits his investigation to cases in which the child starts talking about memories without anyone asking. Up to 1997, he and his colleagues had collected more than 2,600 cases from a wide range of cultures and religions around the world.

       To qualify for a “solved” case, Dr. Stevenson wants to hear detailed memories of the past life from the child, a match to the life of one (and only one) predeceased individual, and no way the child could have known the details other than having lived as this individual. If there are traits, skills, phobias, and preferences that are out of place for a child’s natural family, but that match the life of the previous personality, those details would reinforce the verbal memories and strengthen the evidence for reincarnation, Stevenson contends.

       In thirty-five percent of his verified cases (309 of 895), the children had birthmarks or birth defects that matched wounds from their previous lives. ”They are important because they offer physical evidence for the link between past and present lives,” claims Dr. Stevenson. He found that memories often appear for the first time when the child is between the ages of two and five.

       Most spontaneous past life memories in children involve memories of death – especially a violent one. Dr. Stevenson suggests: “It seems reasonable to suppose that the intensity of an experience such as a violent death can in some way strengthen or ‘fixate’ memories so that they are more readily preserved in consciousness.” 

Prepare for the shock

       Now for the heart of the topic: advice for caregivers when a child announces shockers like, “My other mommy had curly hair” or “I died before.” One 18-month-old toddler, who had spoken in single words only to that point, told her stunned mother, "I am going to take my vows tomorrow. My name is Rose but tomorrow I will be Sister Theresa Gregory."

      Bowman offers five suggestions to help you cope with what could be one of the most memorable moments of your life.

·         Stay calm. Especially if you’re the driver in a moving vehicle! Many children reveal past lives as they slip into an altered state due to the vibration of the car. Pull over if you can and turn off the car. Take a deep breath and pay attention to the child’s words and tone of voice.

·         Acknowledge. Use a loving voice and assuring words to help your child continue with the revelation.

·         Allow emotions. Allow the memory to unfold naturally and the child to express his or her emotions.

·         Clarify past and present. Help your child to understand that the past life is over and that his or her present reality is safe.

       Bowman encourages caregivers to trust that their love for the child will come through. “Respond by affirming, allowing, encouraging, acknowledging, explaining, clarifying, assuring – and always with love,” she writes. “More important than any technique,” she adds, “allow your child to lead the way.” Simple phrases like “Oh, I see,” or “That’s interesting,” or echoing the child’s statement, can help the child to stay focused and continue with the story.

       Children’s Past Lives abounds with stories of children (and adults) healing after a relevant past life was revealed. Here’s another story involving her son, Chase. He was upset after a “Ninja” slumber party with games, videos and pizza. After that night, he got anxiety attacks at bedtime. “He felt sick to his stomach, got very pale and quiet, and was anxious about not being able to get to sleep,” Bowman says. This went on for six weeks. The parents tried everything to comfort him but nothing worked.

       Then Chase, who by now was familiar with past lives, suggested doing a regression. His mother helped him to stay with the feelings from the Ninja party in order to find the relevant past life. He traveled in his mind back to “castle times” where he was trying to steal something, got caught, and put in a dungeon where he died. He explored his feelings from that life and could see how the Ninja party triggered the memory. His stomachache left, and he slept peacefully.

                          * * *

Reincarnation is real to me because I have experienced past lives myself. About 25 years ago, I went to a regression therapist out of curiosity. The lives that I relived seemed credible because of the physical sensations involved. For example, in one life, I was a young soldier shot in the lower back. As I described the incident, I felt a shock at the base of my spine that went to the top of my head and to my feet at the same time. I have never had that sensation in this lifetime.

       In another past life memory, I died in a fire. I could feel three stages to the death: I was conscious and in pain; I was unconscious but still alive; then I felt my spirit leave my body. Needless to say, I have not experienced that in this life. The good part about reliving past lives for me is that if I have lived before, I assume I will live again. This present life is just one of many. I'll do my best and know that I can complete things in other lives if necessary.

       As I was preparing this article, I asked friends for their experiences. Here’s a sampling:

·         Pat says her four-year-old grandson Anders asked her, "Do you miss Christopher?" She told him "Yes" whereupon he replied, “You don’t have to worry about Chris anymore. He’s in my body.” Pat’s son Chris had died at age eight. Anders knew about the death of Chris but the concept "he's in my body" was totally his own thinking. Pat told me, "I don't understand it, I just accept it." 

·         Maria told me her five-year-old daughter announced she had lived in Atlantis. "The reason Atlantis disappeared," she told her surprised mother, "is that the people abused their psychic powers. They could kill others by using their thoughts."

Anna Olson is a freelance writer and editor living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. If you would like permission to reprint this or other articles, email her at annols@mts.net.