Posted on Saturday 13th March 2021 at 11:57pm
Anti-VAD campaigners have caused themselves further major embarrassment by repeatedly cherry-picking statistics to try and establish a case that the full data conflicts with.
Here we go again. Branka van der Linden of Catholic anti-VAD website “HOPE”, and the Australian Care Alliance — endorsed by a number of well-known, committed Catholic doctors — have just published more egregious misinformation against VAD. This time they've collectively piled it on Victoria's general suicide statistics, recently updated by the Victorian Coroner. So what did they say, and how did it misrepresent the actual situation? Let's take a look.
The reason the statistics are being discussed is because in 2017, Victoria's parliament legalised voluntary assisted dying (VAD) for the terminally ill. The law came into effect halfway through 2019, and 2020 was the first full year of its operation.
Australian Care Alliance gets the basics wrong
Keywords:
Bull |
Fudge |
Fiction |
Faith |
Assisted dying (AD) |
Australia |
Victoria |
Branka van der Linden |
Religion |
Catholic |
Statistics |
Rhetoric |
Rhetoric: Suicide |
Rhetoric: Suicide 'contagion'
Read more...
Posted on Monday 1st April 2019 at 9:59pm
Revealed – how Dutch ethicist Theo Boer uses smoke and mirrors to suggest assisted dying is out of control in the Netherlands, and a possible explanation why.
In my most recent article in the Journal of Assisted Dying, I forensically analyse Dutch ethicist Professor Theo Boer’s 2017 paper purporting to find suicide contagion from assisted dying in the Netherlands. It doesn’t go well for Professor Boer, to put it mildly. You can find the full article here.
I also find an astonishing coincidence that occurred in 2014, the year Boer went feral against the Dutch euthanasia law.
Multiple fatal flaws
Keywords:
Bull |
Fearmonger |
Flapdoodle |
Flip-flop |
Fudge |
Fiction |
Faith |
Assisted dying (AD) |
Euthanasia |
Belgium |
Netherlands |
Article review |
Claim response |
Lobbying: Opponents |
Statistics |
Rhetoric: Suicide 'contagion'
Read more...
Posted on Monday 13th November 2017 at 6:28pm
A new report to be published this week slams Jones & Paton’s 2015 “suicide contagion” study, and Kheriaty’s editorial of it, as unscientific and containing multiple substantial instances of bias.
In the ongoing political campaign against assisted dying law reform, opponents have spread one piece of egregious misinformation after another. One of the most common is supposed “suicide contagion” from assisted dying laws to general suicide, a theory popularised by Catholic Prof. Margaret Somerville. Despite the nonsense of her claim being comprehensively exposed, she still believes that her opinion “will prove to be correct.” Two journal papers published in 2015 purported to, but didn't, establish suicide contagion in Oregon and Washington states.
Note: the report is now published here.
Keywords:
Fearmonger |
Fudge |
Fiction |
Assisted dying (AD) |
USA |
Oregon |
Catholic Church |
Margaret Somerville |
Analysis |
Article review |
Statistics |
Rhetoric |
Rhetoric: Suicide 'contagion'
Read more...
Posted on Sunday 28th August 2016 at 12:58am
Assisted dying opponents often misuse statistics in an attempt to create an impression of a crisis that doesn’t exist. In this blog I ‘out’ the nonsense argument that’s starting to trend about Belgium’s general (non-assisted dying) suicide rate.
The latest misinformation employed by assisted dying opponents is to imply that Belgium’s general suicide rate is high as a consequence of its assisted dying law: i.e. to argue the discredited 'suicide contagion' line which has in the past been peddled about the USA state of Oregon. I have demonstrated that it was false in Oregon, and I equally demonstrate here that it's false in Belgium.
Mr Brad Mattes recently published emotional anti-assisted-dying nonsense in LifeSiteNews. (LifeSiteNews is a Canadian blog site that was established by the conservative Christian Campaign for Life Coalition and which has a primary principle of promoting “traditional Judeo-Christian principles”.
Keywords:
Bull |
Flapdoodle |
Fudge |
Fiction |
Assisted dying (AD) |
Involuntary euthanasia (IVE) |
Non-voluntary euthanasia (NVE) |
Physician-assisted dying (PAD) |
Voluntary euthanasia (VE) |
USA |
Rhetoric: Suicide 'contagion'
Read more...
Posted on Wednesday 27th April 2016 at 11:36pm
Wesley Smith is consistsent if nothing else. He's opined about assisted dying once again, this time that the USA's national suicide rate is a consequence of assisted suicide law in those few USA jurisdictions that permit it.
Wesley Smith never seems to tire of spreading opinion. In another piece of published nonsense, he's proposed that USA's rise in national suicide rate is in significant part a consequence of assisted dying law in those few states that permit it (up until the most recent general suicide data that's Oregon, Washington state, Vermont and Montana). His claim flies in the face of actual evidence.
Wesley Smith is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. Remember that? It's the organisation that a USA Federal court ruled pursues "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions," and which comprehensively lost a test case in which it tried to have 'intelligent design' (that's creationism with lipstick) taught as a 'scientific' alternative to evolution.
Keywords:
Fearmonger |
Flapdoodle |
USA |
Wesley Smith |
Rhetoric: Slippery slope |
Rhetoric: Suicide 'contagion'
Read more...
Posted on Saturday 2nd January 2016 at 12:35am
The Journal of Assisted Dying is launched today, commencing with a fully researched article on how several Oregonian doctors use mistaken information to paint a bleak and incorrect picture of Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.
A new scholarly journal focused on end-of-life ethics, decision-making and practice has just been launched: the Journal of Assisted Dying. In the first article, claims by Oregon lobby group Physicians for Compassionate Care (PCC), including Doctors Bill (William) Toffler and Ken Stevens (and others) are assessed against empirical evidence and found to be completely wrong, or highly misleading as a result of selective use of data.
The new scholarly journal, the Journal of Assisted Dying, is dedicated to careful and holistic analysis of evidence in regard to the various forms of assisted dying that are lawful in a number of jurisdictions around the world... and to practices in jurisdictions where assisted dying remains illegal.
Keywords:
Fearmonger |
Filibuster |
Fudge |
Fiction |
Physician-assisted dying (PAD) |
Assisted dying (AD) |
Oregon |
Ken Stevens |
William (Bill) Sylvester |
Rhetoric: Slippery slope |
Rhetoric: Suicide 'contagion'
Read more...
Posted on Wednesday 25th November 2015 at 8:00pm
The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne appeared before the Victorian Parliamentary inquiry into end-of-life decision making last week. A key 'fact' they told the Committee was absolutely false.
On Wednesday 19th November 2015, the Catholic Church appeared before the Victorian Parliament's Legal and Social Issues Committee. Monsignor Anthony Ireland, the Episcopal Vicar for Health, Aged and Disability Care, and Father Anthony Kerin, Episcopal Vicar for Life, Marriage and Family gave evidence about end-of-life decision making. They made a factually wrong allegation about Oregon during their testimony.
Anthony Ireland spoke first, making it clear that they were appearing before the Committee with delegated authority from the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne (Denis Hart) and with the endorsement of the Victorian Catholic Bishops. He emphasised that "the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne does not come to this Committee with fanciful or frivolous arguments."
Keywords:
Fiction |
Physician-assisted dying (PAD) |
Australia |
Victoria |
Oregon |
Catholic Church |
Catholic |
Rhetoric: Slippery slope |
Rhetoric: Suicide 'contagion'
Read more...