News: No Easy Answers

Judy Snyderman has seen it from the inside out. As a medical equipment sales representative to hospitals, she became aware of what she calls “so many very sad cases, where quality of life was gone, no contribution (to living) could be made, and the drain on resources of family and hospitals was heavy.”

Now retired, the Mason resident wants to help re-shape thinking about how some of us end our days. With other interested people, she’s established a Greater Cincinnati chapter of the national organization, End of Life Choices.

The group meets at 3 p.m. Sunday as S. Elizabeth Malloy, University of Cincinnati Law School professor, speaks on “End of Life Choices and Health Care Law.”

“People need to know their choices, to know about advance directives,” Snyderman says. “We focus on education in these areas and eventually hope to be politically active at the state level.”

In Oregon, physician-assisted suicide is accepted in specifically defined circumstances. The courts denied U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s challenge to the Oregon law, ruling it is a state matter.

“I don’t know if Ashcroft will pursue this further, but the most ominous move would be if he went to Congress over it,” says Faye Girsh, former president of End of Life Choices.

Legislation in four other states to further patient control has been defeated but is expected to be re-introduced. The prospect of such legislation in Ohio was met with laughter at an organizational meeting for the local chapter last spring.

“Things are very conservative here,” Snyderman says. “In San Diego, for instance, local meetings are heavily attended and there’s lots of interest. In southern Ohio, we sometimes have trouble finding a place to meet and notices in the paper have brought angry calls.”

The immediate thrust for the local chapter is to encourage understanding of living wills and durable power of attorney for health care. Both are recognized in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, as are non-hospital “do not resuscitate” orders. But will these directives be carried out?

“It all depends on the doctor,” says Dorothy Heinlein, who in the 1970s with the late Jane Steinfirst pioneered a local chapter of the Euthanasia Education Council here. “Living wills then were rather rare. Now Ohio hospitals by law must make them available to patients, but the decisions lie with the doctors.”

The decision can be agonizing, but Pat Samson, media consultant for Health Alliance — Christ, University, Jewish, Ft. Hamilton and St. Luke hospitals — says establishing directives “takes it out of the kids’ hands, tells them exactly what mom and dad want.”

Help might be found in the abundant literature available from End of Life Choices. Books, videos and pamphlets consider caring for aging parents, dying at home, facts and myths on choosing a hastened death and “How to Deal with the System” at the end of life.

End of Life Choices considers hastened death in a terminal illness a human right, but the nation’s developing conservative climate has brought about what Girsh calls “a changing of the guard.” The old name with its classical connotations, Hemlock Society, has been dumped in favor of End of Life Choices.

This article appears in Sep 15-21, 2004.