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Grandma Can’t Kill Herself In Massachusetts

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Well, I guess that I am not surprised that the citizens of Massachusetts voted 51 to 49% to kill the assisted suicide measure.

Death With Dignity, the group that supported the measure, was outspent 5 to 1 by the opposition. But it was very close and I’d imagine that it will be back on the ballot soon.

One of the more effective anti assisted suicide messages offered by the opposition was that grandma could be offed by a greedy relative who would be one of the two people needed to witness a person’s request. So, if you are terminal, in great pain and want out… too bad. You can’t do it in MA because the opposition invoked granny. As I have asked on this blog and in the book “Boomercide”, don’t I have the right to control my destiny? Why is the Catholic Church involved in my personal decisions?

From the Boston Globe:

A Massachusetts ballot question that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill has been defeated by a narrow margin.

The measure voted on Tuesday was defeated 51 percent to 49 percent with 96 percent of precincts counted, and was the closest of the three questions on the Massachusetts ballot.

‘‘We believe the voters came to see this as a flawed approach to end of life care, lacking in the most basic safeguards,’’ Rosanne Bacon Meade, chairwoman of the Committee Against Assisted Suicide, said in a statement.

Religious, medical and disability rights groups fought the measure, saying it’s open to manipulation and relies on diagnoses that could be wrong.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, leaders of millions of Roman Catholics in the state, called the defeat the best outcome for the ‘‘common good.’’

‘‘It is my hope and prayer that the defeat of Question 2 will help all people to understand that for our brothers and sisters confronted with terminal illness we can do better than offering them the means to end their lives,’’ O’Malley said in a statement.

Increase Seen in U.S. Suicide Rate Since Recession

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A new report from The Lancet found that a rise of 1 percent in unemployment is accompanied by an increase in the suicide rate of roughly 1 percent.

Really no surprise here since recession pain can cause recession depression.

That said, there has been very little reporting on this issue which has been clear to suicideologists.

In the report, which appeared Sunday on the Web site of The Lancet, a medical journal, researchers found that the rate between 2008 and 2010 increased four times faster than it did in the eight years before the recession. The rate had been increasing by an average of 0.12 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 through 2007. In 2008, the rate began increasing by an average of 0.51 deaths per 100,000 people a year. Without the increase in the rate, the total deaths from suicide each year in the United States would have been lower by about 1,500, the study said.

You can find the report here ,scroll down the page.

Why Do Doctors Want You To Live In Pain? Why Is Physician Assisted Suicide Illegal?

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Massachusetts voters get to choose if they will allow their fellow citizens to control their lives on Tuesday by voting on a bill  to decide whether to legalize physician-assisted suicide.

The proposed measure allows terminally ill patients to be given access to lethal drugs. A terminally ill patient is defined as someone with six months or less to live. The patient’s terminal diagnosis and mental competency must be attested to by two doctors. Patients would have to make a request to their doctor twice orally and once in writing. The written request would have to be witnessed.

I live in Oregon, one of the two states, including Washington, that allows me to determine my own fate. I think that this should be my right. If I am terminally ill and or in insurmountable pain, then I should be allowed to ask to be offed.

You should be in control, right? Well, no according to the medical profession.

The American Medical Association “strongly opposes any bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide” because the practice is “fundamentally inconsistent with the physician’s role as healer.”  The Massachusetts Medical Society also opposes the bill. “Allowing physicians to participate in assisted suicide would cause more harm than good,” …  “Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.”

I think that doctors are confused about where their role and my rights intersect. They suggest that they have the right to keep me living like a pained vegetable because, well because they say so.

And then there is this TV commercial from a secretly funded PAC that uses a pharmacist (cute actor) to lend a bit of scare into the equation.

Looks Like 40% Will Never Retire

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The recent study, “Working in Retirement”,  from  the Society of Actuaries says that a third of adults do not expect to retire. A third is a lot. There are 76 million Baby Boomers… 1/3 = 25 million folks that will be hanging around.

This number is up 29% from two yeas ago and the increase is significant. More than 4 in 10 say that they cannot retire because they need the bucks and, in many cases, the employer benefits.

Uncertainty – about life-expectancy and the money required to also plays a major role in per-retirement planning.

“Current trends in retirement indicate that people may need to work longer than they originally planned,” said actuary and retirement expert Carol Bogosian, ASA. “Individuals often have a difficult time estimating how long they can expect to live, how much they will earn on their investments and how much they can spend each year to avoid running out of money. In fact, many people are just guessing about how much money they will need in retirement.”

 

Did We Screw It For The 30 Year Olds?

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When I started writing Boomercide: From Woodstock To Suicide, I didn’t really think beyond my own retirement fears. As I dug into the retirement savings deficit issue, I realized that I was just one of millions, make that ten’s of millions, that did not think that they had saved enough. Of course, being, well, realistic, I have a plan based on controlling my life expectancy.

Here is some more fodder from the new report PEW Social and Demographic Trends:

“More Americans Worry about Financing Retirement. Adults in Their Late 30s Most Concerned”

“About four-in-ten adults (38%) say they are “not too” or “not at all” confident that they will have enough income and assets for their retirement,up from 25% in a Pew Research survey conducted in late February and March of 2009.”

29% to 38% is ENORMOUS!

-> But, it gets worse. Who is more worried? Retirement fears peak in the late 30’s. What the fuck did baby Boomers do to screw up our follow-on generation? Feeling good about yourselves? I’m not.