In recent years, healthcare in the United States has moved more from sanctity of life to quality of life, and it’s time for that to change, according to a patient advocate who is coming to Delaware in April to deliver her message.
Julie Grimstad, vice president of the board of directors of the Healthcare Advocacy and Leadership Organization (HALO), will be the guest speaker at the annual brunch of the Delaware Right to Life. It will be held April 5 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at Newark Country Club. The organization has held a midweek dinner for years but is transitioning to a weekend event this year.
Grimstad was a nurse who moved frequently over the years because of her husband’s job. In each of the cities in which they lived, Grimstad has found a way to become involved in pro-life activities. That started in 1972 in the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., where she became an instructor of natural family planning. After the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, she worked with Birthright in Lincoln.
Since 1985, she has been a patient advocate. She was influenced by the living will law in Montana, where she lived, and by the experience of a neighbor whom, she said, was abandoned by a hospital after a reaction to a medication left her unable to swallow. Grimstad helped her neighbor find another doctor who diagnosed the problem and helped her recover.
Around the same time, there was a similar case in Minnesota where a woman was denied treatment, including food and water, at her daughter’s request. The woman eventually died.
“That’s what really woke me up, and I started being a patient advocate,” Grimstad said from her home in Bedford, Texas.
Her talk in Newark is titled, “Renew Medicine’s Reverence for Life by Protecting Your Own Life First.” According to Delaware Right to Life, “the health care landscape is becoming more difficult and dangerous to navigate, as vulnerable populations are targeted for lesser care and now, assisted suicide.”
Grimstad mentioned Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and medical ethicist, who once said it would be a corporate decision as to who lives and dies, and who gets certain treatment.
“That’s quite a statement, and that is actually what has happened in health care,” Grimstad said. “Nowadays, we’re seeing more and more decisions made based on what some doctor thinks the person’s quality of life is rather than the sacredness of human life.”
Physician-assisted suicide has been a prominent topic in Delaware the past few years, and it is something HALO addresses. Grimstad said her organization does not fight it at the legislative level, but it tracks legislation such as Delaware’s House Bill 140, which would make the practice legal in the state.
“Legislators don’t understand how dangerous these bills are,” she said. They are promoted “with lies and subterfuge,” and the protections built into these laws are often expanded over time.
For example, in Oregon, where voters approved assisted suicide in 1994, only residents initially were covered. It has since been modified so that anyone can travel there and end their life.
“That makes assisted suicide legal all over the United States. It’s pretty easy to hop on a plane and go to Oregon and get killed,” she said.
In Delaware, HB 140 would permit advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) as well as doctors to diagnose a patient’s terminal illness and prognosis. This is different than some other states, according to Grimstad. One of the reasons, she said, is that most doctors don’t want to be involved in this practice. (Doctors are not forced to participate in medical aid in dying under the proposed Delaware law.)
There is good news for opponents of physician-assisted suicide, she noted. After Oregon voters voted to approve it, three years passed before it was available to residents. After that, it was another decade before Washington joined its neighbor to the south, and other states followed.
“But in the past three years, there has not been an assisted suicide bill passed in another state in the United States. So those fighting them at the legislative level have been really effective,” Grimstad said.
Her organization, HALO, helps families make end-of-life decisions, trains patient advocates for critically ill people, provides educational resources, offers guidance for navigating the healthcare system, and more. Its website is halovoice.org.
Tickets to the Right to Life luncheon are $55 ($20 for students) and available at derighttolife.org/calendar.
