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Assisted Suicide Debate; Nurse Defies Maine Quarantine

Aired October 30, 2014 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And top of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let's begin with this Doctors Without Borders nurse, Kaci Hickox, as she's still standing by her contention she's absolutely no threat to the public. She's bracing herself for a standoff with the state of Main. You see the pictures here this morning. She defied the state's quarantine request by hopping on her bike to take a ride with her partner.

A police car followed her for this hour-long ride. Kaci Hickox, as you know, her backstory, she just returned to States Friday after treating Ebola victims in Sierra Leone. And she was hopeful a legal showdown could be avoided.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Why a bike ride?

KACI HICKOX, NURSE: This is something my partner and I like to do. Since we have moved here, this has been our trail.

QUESTION: Are you afraid with the state police around?

HICKOX: I'm not afraid.

QUESTION: Have you heard anything from your lawyer?

HICKOX: I sure haven't. No. We're still waiting, waiting to hear from the state of Maine to see what they want to do. I hope that we can continue negotiations and work this out amicably.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The governor has now responded to Hickox leaving her home. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. PAUL LEPAGE (R), MAINE: I don't want her within three feet of anybody.

QUESTION: What happens if she does. Is there any legal ramifications?

(CROSSTALK) LEPAGE: Let put it this way. I'm going to use the legal provisions to the fullest extent that the law allows me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You heard the governor. We know that there are police patrol cars set up shop outside of the nurse's home in Fort Kent, Maine, and that's where a number of members of the media are, including our own Jean Casarez.

So, Jean, we saw her on the bike this morning. What happens, I guess, under the quarantine rules in the state of Maine? What happens if she decides to get off her bike, walk into a store, walk around town? What then?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, from everything we know, probably nothing because this is a voluntary quarantine. There's nothing that under the law that allows her or gives someone the ability to arrest her.

But the governor of the state did say that he can exercise to the fullest extent of his authority. That means going to the judge asking a judge for an order for a type of mandatory quarantine. But we have no information that he's done that. But I have learned that it can be sealed. It can be confidential because this is a public health issue.

But the fact is that the governor, when he spoke out the first time today after saying there were hours of negotiations, also then spoke in generalities, that someone with some risk, all right, can remain in their home, not go to a public place or commercial transportation or public transportation, but can for a walk, go for a walk, ride a bike, not get within three feet of someone, but he said but then the negotiations broke down.

What does he mean by all that? He went on though to publicly talk about this point. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEPAGE: As long as she's not touching other people or, you know, staying a distance from other people, then I don't see the harm. What I'm concerned about is infection of Mainers. We have 1.3 million people to protect. On the one hand, I'm trying to protect the entire state, but at the same token I don't want her to get hurt either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Brooke, you know his attorneys are advising him also as the governor of the state.

But I think one thing we have learned here, this is subjective, case- by-case basis. There were negotiations. They broke down. The state was probably willing to give some things and maybe they were too, but they just couldn't reach an agreement, which logically tells us that possibly she does want to go into that store, that restaurant, just like you just said, Brooke. BALDWIN: What about the community, though? I'm sitting here

wondering, listen, she's self-monitoring, she's a nurse taking her temperature. She's asymptomatic, which means she's not contagious.

Are people in that neighborhood where you're joining me, do they understand that? Do they say, hey, it's fine for her to be out and about or do they prefer she stay in the home behind you?

CASAREZ: There's differing opinions, but I think the overall opinion is that they wish that they weren't front-page news. They wish she would just stay in her home for the 21 days and I think what they really are trying to say is just respect the state. What the state public health authorities are saying, that's what we want to follow. So it will be over with. And then you go on with her life.

But they also applaud her for what she did in Western Africa.

BALDWIN: Jean Casarez, we all should applaud her and so many others. Thank you so much for joining me from Maine.

People like Kaci Hickox and these doctors and nurses, even journalists coming in from these Western African nations into the States being impacted. They will now have to go through new screening procedures to help prevent the potential spread of the virus.

This is happening at five major U.S. airports. You seen them on your screen. You have New York, Newark, Chicago, Atlanta and Dulles International Airport.

And that's where will go to now to our Rene Marsh, who has got behind- the-scenes access at exactly what passengers will be walking through when it comes to these health screenings.

Explain this to us, Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, you know, we have been talking so much about the enhanced screening measures happening at these five airports and for the first time we got a behind-the-scenes look at exactly how this all works.

I can tell you it all starts with this. We have been talking about that specialized CDC questionnaire. We have our own copy. It breaks out the kind of questions that an individual coming from one of those three countries will be asked. We see that they are asked for two e- mail address, two phone numbers. They are asked for the home address where they will be staying and then they're asked for another address for the next 21 days.

On the bottom of this form, we also see that it directs the customs officer to ask very specific questions. I am just going to run through a couple of them. They ask about their fever, they ask about vomiting or diarrhea. They have asked about the kind of contact that they have had with individuals potentially infected with the disease.

Now, I want to go to some video of this behind-the-scenes tour that we just walked out of. You're looking at video of one of the quarantine rooms. Mind you, this is at all five of these airports where this enhanced screening is happening.

They all have this quarantine room that you're looking at here. An individual will only be sent to this room in the event that they either, A, have a fever or, B, they answer something on this questionnaire that raises a red flag. Then they are sent to that room. You can see there's protective gear from the medical staff there.

There's an examination bed. They are in there for about 15 minutes or so. And the medical professional is really taking a deep dive into their history for the last couple of days, taking a very close look at them to see if they see any symptoms. And in that room, they make the determination, does this person need to be transported to the hospital?

Again, we're just getting out of that behind-the-scenes look. We will have a lot more on this in our next hour at 4:00. But I did ask the question Customs and Border Protection today. How effective has this enhanced screening really been in the case or in the mission to combat Ebola making its way here to the United States?

I mean, when you consider this, zero cases have been detected through this enhanced screening. Look at the doctor there in New York City. He came through JFK, one of the airports where we see this enhanced screening. He didn't raise any red flags because he didn't have symptoms at the time.

The answer that I got is that it's effective in the sense that they are able to go back and say on this day this person, we had a face-to- face with them, they did not have any symptoms. So we at least know during this portion of time, the people he or she came in contact with, they shouldn't be in any danger.

But, Brooke, it was good to see how this all works and how things are in place to make sure that, you know, Americans, as they say, remain safe.

BALDWIN: Sure.

We will be watching more of your reporting a little later on here on CNN. Rene Marsh for me at Dulles International Airport, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

So, that's what a lot of people will be faced with these screenings if you're coming back from West Africa. But what about Africans? What about Liberians right here in the United States? I spent my evening eating dinner last night with three Liberian refugees. I have some incredible stories to share with you, including the fact that many of them actually fled their home country because of the civil war.

And do you know what they told me? They said Ebola is worse because, in a civil war, you knew where your enemy was and you could run. Here, you don't know -- their incredible stories coming up.

Also, an Iraqi woman's terrible tale, kidnapped, enslaved and raped by members of ISIS, and she was one of thousands who have suffered a this similar fate. She describes her escape next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

The first Iraqi Kurdish fighters to enter the war against ISIS in Syria have reached the battlefield. And as if to extend a handshake, U.S. warplanes greeted these Kurds with strikes against ISIS in Kobani. That is the town on the Turkish border besieged by ISIS for the past six weeks.

Now, the Iraqi Kurds, right, so this is the Peshmerga we're talking about, they are trickling into Kobani from this border crossing directly to the north there. Here's thing. They will be delivering heavy weapons desperately needed by the city's defenders for the fight against the better-armed ISIS.

And we have talked about the atrocities committed by ISIS, the mass killings, the beheadings, forced conversion to Islam. Here now, a firsthand account of how ISIS is forcing women into a crushing form of slavery.

CNN senior international correspondent Ivan Watson reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jana was a 19-year-old high school senior with dreams of becoming a doctor when ISIS first came to her village.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translation): They came to the village and said you have to convert to Islam or we will kill you.

WATSON: Jana -- not her real name -- is from the village of ethnic Kurds from the Yazidi religious minority, which was surrounded and occupied by ISIS. Soon after, she says, they ordered the entire village to go to the school where they separated the men from the women. According to a United Nations report ISIS gathered all males older than 10 years of age, took them outside the village by pickup trucks and shot them. A different fate lay in store for the women.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translation): They separated the girls and the women who had children and the old women. They took us girls to Mosul to a big three-story house.

WATSON: Jana says there were hundreds of girls in the house and they got visits from the men of ISIS.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translation): They came to the room and looked around at the girls, and if they liked one, they chose her and took her. If the girls cried and didn't want to leave, they beat the girl. The guy who chose me was 70 years old and he took me to his house.

There were four Yazidi girls there already. They hit us and didn't give us enough to eat or drink. He put me in a room and put a gun to my head. I was on the ground. He said I will kill you because you won't convert to Islam. That night, they came and took an 11- year- old girl away. When she came back, she told me they raped her.

WATSON: Dr. Nazand Begikhani is an adviser to the Kurdistan regional government and an expert on gender violence. She says ISIS kidnapped more than 2,500 Yazidi women last August. Since then, she says the captive women have been bought and sold across Iraq and Syria like cattle.

DR. NAZAND BEGIKHANI, ADVISER TO KURDISTAN REGIONAL GOVERNMENT: They have two first aims, first to recruit youngsters by giving them these young girls and women, and, secondly, to humiliate and expose these women into slavery and systematic rape.

WATSON: Since August, Kurdish authorities succeeded in rescuing only a fraction of the thousands of kidnapped Yazidi women.

BEGIKHANI: So far, we managed to rescue about 100 women.

But Begikhani says all of those rescued say they were raped.

(on camera): If you could say something to the man who took you to his house, what would you want to tell this guy?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translation): I don't want to tell him anything. I just want to kill him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Wow, just incredibly powerful few words there.

Ivan Watson joining me now from Istanbul, Turkey.

And I have to wonder. It's like you talk about the fraction of the girls that they have found. Is there any way -- there really is no way to hold ISIS accountable for atrocity after atrocity after atrocity.

WATSON: Not at this point, because ISIS is fighting on several fronts at once against its enemies and it continues to hold territory, Brooke. So, they are the law of the land that they control.

And that means if -- it includes these thousands of female hostages and in many cases their children. There's nobody who can come in and just rescue these people all in go. And that young woman that I talked to, her mother and her two brothers are still being held by ISIS to this day, more than two months after they were kidnapped from their village.

BALDWIN: It is horrendous. Please keep shining a light. Please keep telling the stories.

Ivan Watson for me in Istanbul, thank you, Ivan.

Coming up next, it is a gut-wrenching story we have been following four. This is Brittany Maynard. Remember, she's the terminally ill woman in Oregon who says she plans on ending her life by taking some fatal pills. But she says now actually doesn't seem like the right time.

So, next, we will talk to a woman who helped get Oregon's death with dignity law passed after she helped her own terminally ill daughter end her life many years ago. What does she make of Brittany Maynard's story, her decision? And what is it like to determine when it's time? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You hear it all the time. How are you? It's a simple greeting for perhaps you or me, but it's a life-and-death decision that Brittany Maynard is now making each and every day.

The 29-year-old terminally ill cancer patient allowed the world know that she planned to end her life after her husband's birthday this past October 26. Now in a new video she's just released this week, she's revealing she has not decided yet when she will end her life.

But she has not wavered on her stance that all states should allow the terminally ill the ability to take their own lives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRITTANY MAYNARD, TERMINALLY ILL: So, if November 2 comes along and I have passed, I hope my family is still proud of me and the choices I have made. And if November 2 comes along and I'm still alive, I know that we will just still be moving forward as a family, like out of love for each other and that that decision will come later.

When people criticize me for not -- not, like, waiting longer or, you know, whatever they have decided is best for me, it hurts, because really I risk it every day, every day that I wake up. And I do it because I still feel good enough. And I still have enough joy. And I still laugh and smile with my family and friends enough that it doesn't seem like the right time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Maynard lives in Oregon, where she deliberately relocated because of its Death With Dignity Act.

And my next guest helped convince voters to pass the measure back in 1994. She's Patty Rosen, a nurse practitioner. She assisted her daughter's death years beforehand, when no laws were on the books. She risked years in prison doing so. But she said her daughter Jody was in extreme pain. Cancer had at the time dissolved her bones.

And Patty Rosen joins me now.

Patty, I just wanted to say I know today particularly marks exactly 28 years to the day of your daughter's death, so thank you so much for taking the time with me. I really appreciate it.

PATTY ROSEN, RIGHT-TO-DIE ADVOCATE: Well, you're welcome. And I'm so glad you're covering this.

And that's the first time I have seen a clip much Brittany talking about ending her life. And of course she wants to try to figure this out day by day, if not hour by hour. She's feeling good. She's got some joy. Isn't that what life is all about?

But isn't life also about being able to control your suffering at the end of your life? And I don't care how old you are for that. Isn't that our right to control our suffering? Oh, I'm so proud of Brittany. I mean, it's like, you go, girl. Tell the world what my daughter could not because it was a felony.

BALDWIN: Let me talk about -- let me ask you about you and your daughter because the real question is -- and I spoke with a man who lost his wife -- they were featured in a documentary, "How to Die in Oregon."

And at least for the wife at the time, she was feeling fine on the day they had set. And so they pushed it back and they pushed it back until they determined it was time. How did you, how did your daughter determine when was the right time to die?

ROSEN: No, this is a completely different case.

Jody was diagnosed with bone cancer from her head to her toe. And she was literally dying for like six or eight months that she couldn't move. She had bowel obstruction. She was going blind. Everything was wrong with Jody.

And -- but, just like Brittany, she was young. She was healthy. She had good vital organs. And so that suffering could have gone on forever, and Jody said, this is silly. This is crazy. Why do you want me to suffer like this, mom? Please help me die.

And it was like, I knew she would ask that because we had talked about that very issue for years. Who has the right to take their own life when they are terminally ill? So, Jody said, please help me. And she would say things like, mom, if I were a little dog, you wouldn't have any problem with this. Please, how long can you watch me suffer?

And I finally got to the...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: But this isn't a dog you're talking about. This is your daughter. At any point in time, did you ever try -- did you ever try to talk her out of it?

ROSEN: Oh, wait a minute. Yes, that's my daughter. And I used to say to her, Jody, I think there's a little difference here. You're my daughter, not my dog. And she would pat me on the hand and say, mom, I understand. And I said, give me time. Give me time.

I tried once in the spring. And, remember, she's bedridden. She can't move. She has no bones left. Everybody is bad. And, remember, no other medical person touched her because she knew she was dying as a result of medical neglect. So I gave all care. I gave all procedures. And I was with her 24/7.

So she said, help me die. And I said, OK, OK, OK. Well, helping a terminally person die who is addicted to pain medication is a nightmare, and you're not going call a doctor, you're not going call a pharmacy way back then. It's a felony.

And there I was, and there was Jody. And so my first attempt failed. And she woke up. And I will not get over that guilt, because I put her right back into suffering. The next time, I was ready. And so I said, OK, Jody, we can do this. And she said, mom, thank you. This is the best day of my life.

And I'm thinking the best day of Jody's life? I'm going to lose my mind. But I focused. I focused on Jody's suffering. And I was able to assist her.

And I want to share with you what Jody said to her psychotherapist that the therapist shared with me when I went to see her after Jody died. My daughter Jody said, please, don't let anything happen to my mom.

BALDWIN: So, here, this is something you point out. You helped your daughter die. This would be a felony. You wait. You hold this. The statute of limitations runs out.

And now you helped death with dignity become what it is today here in Oregon.

ROSEN: Yes.

BALDWIN: And I guess my final question to you is -- and I have to ask this of any of my guests. Listen, there's obviously the other side of the story, whether you're a person of religious faith who believes one's life is in the hands of God, or science and it is up to doctors, and doctors, you know, can be wrong or doctors can push back dates.

Why should it be in the hands of the terminally ill individual?

ROSEN: Because it's magic when you get the medication.

The magic in the medication allows the terminally ill person to feel at ease. They know that at any time, if they can no longer take the suffering, if they have just had it with the suffering, they can end that suffering, and they can plan it with family and friends, if they so wish.

And so why should they end their life? That's up to them. But if you provide the medication, nine times out of 10, they die a natural death, because they don't have to be afraid. They have control. They can plan their death, and they know it.