The Alzheimer’s Association, a national nonprofit with a mission of promoting care, support, and research for Alzheimer’s disease, quickly backpedaled from a partnership with the pro-assisted suicide group Compassion & Choices mere hours after news of the collaboration was widely disseminated.
Compassion & Choices, a lobbying group financially supported by George Soros that seeks to make assisted suicide legal throughout the country, had in December announced its partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association for the ostensible purpose of sharing data and resources to improve “end-of-life care” for people in the “Black, Latino, Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI), and LGBTQ communities.”
The Alzheimer’s Association, meanwhile, had not disclosed the partnership on its website despite the organization’s promise to share “partnership information with all constituents.”
But word of the collaboration quickly spread after it was reported in an article published by the Washington Free Beacon on Saturday.
Hours following the publication of the piece, the Alzheimer’s Association put out a press release announcing the end of its brief relationship with Compassion & Choices.
“In an effort to provide information and resources about Alzheimer’s disease, the Alzheimer’s Association entered into an agreement to provide education and awareness information to Compassion & Choices, but failed to do appropriate due diligence. Their values are inconsistent with those of the Association,” the release read.
The group added, “We deeply regret our mistake, have begun the termination of the relationship, and apologize to all of the families we support who were hurt or disappointed. Additionally, we are reviewing our process for all agreements including those that are focused on the sharing of educational information.”
According to the Compassion & Choices press release that originally announced the now-canceled partnership, the alliance would have resulted in national webinars, local community events, shared data, conferences, and more inclusion of “underrepresented communities” in research and surveys.
“Compassion & Choices is committed to transforming the way people live and die with dementia by connecting them with the information, tools and resources they need to take control of their care and claim their voice before they are unable to speak for themselves,” stated Kim Callinan, the group’s president and CEO.
The short-lived union was one to raise eyebrows. While the Alzheimer’s Association has made it a goal to combat the “stigma” of dementia and Alzheimer’s, Callinan has called dementia “a fate worse than death.”
It should be noted that Compassion & Choices was formerly known by a much more explicit name: The Hemlock Society. Hemlock is a poisonous plant that was used in ancient Greece to kill condemned prisoners. Socrates famously died by drinking a hemlock infusion.
As the Free Beacon noted of the group’s history and political involvement:
Compassion & Choices was known as the Hemlock Society until the group’s support for fellow member Jack Kevorkian—and his increasing number of so-called mercy killings—tainted the brand. While the Hemlock Society celebrated Kevorkian’s actions, the Alzheimer’s Association issued a statement in opposition, noting that “we must … affirm the right to dignity and life for every Alzheimer patient and cannot condone suicide.”
George Soros, whose mother was a member of the Hemlock Society, poured millions into the assisted suicide movement through his Open Society Foundations, in part to help the Hemlock Society rebrand itself as Compassion & Choices.
… Compassion & Choices isn’t an “end-of-life care” organization but an assisted suicide lobby group, although its website describes the practice as “medical aid in dying.” It spends considerable effort redefining what “end-of-life care” encompasses, and between 2017 and 2020, Compassion & Choices spent over $2 million on lobbying for assisted suicide, despite its own admission that certain people who shouldn’t qualify for assisted suicide in the United States have already qualified.
One factor that may have contributed to the Alzheimer’s Association’s decision to pull out of the partnership is that it easily gave the appearance of supporting eugenics, as their planned collaboration would have focused on bringing the two groups’ combined resources to minority communities.
Indeed, Compassion & Choices has invested heavily in trying to spread its “end-of-life planning educational resources” among “underserved communities.” In 2018, they handed out 0 guides and pamphlets. In 2020, this number went up to 22,380.
For an organization that claims to take pride in diversity and “underserved groups,” they ironically want to increase the number of such people who are killed per year.
They have much work ahead of them. Thus far, racial minorities have refused to choose assisted suicide at the same rate as whites. In Oregon, for instance, only 1 out of the 2,100 assisted deaths that have taken place in the state was black. And in Washington, 92 percent of assisted suicides have been white.
It should be noted that the literature published by Compassion & Choices makes no mention of what dementia is, nor does it delve into topics like life expectancy or the disease’s stages. It merely describes dementia as “unnecessary suffering.”
Matt Vallière, executive director of the anti-assisted suicide Patients’ Rights Action Fund, took aim at the Alzheimer’s Association for working with Compassion & Choices.
“It is a very bad look for the Alzheimer’s Association, who have done so much for patients, to form a partnership with the leading proponent organization for assisted suicide laws, putting people with dementia and other intellectual disabilities at grave risk of deadly harm,” he said.
Is it any surprise that Soros is behind Compassion & Choices? From abortion to assisted suicide, the Left has completely adopted eugenics and a culture of death as central to their philosophy.
But the Alzheimer’s Association’s decision to bow out of the alliance shows that those who support life can make a difference if they continue spreading the truth and engaging in activism to apply public pressure.
