Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

Always Care, Never Kill: How Physician-Assisted Suicide Endangers the Weak, Corrupts Medicine, Compromises the Family, and Violates Human Dignity and Equality

Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D. writes:

Abstract

Allowing physician-assisted suicide would be a grave mistake for four reasons. First, it would endanger the weak and vulnerable. Second, it would corrupt the practice of medicine and the doctor–patient relationship. Third, it would compromise the family and intergenerational commitments. And fourth, it would betray human dignity and equality before the law. Instead of helping people to kill themselves, we should offer them appropriate medical care and human presence. We should respond to suffering with true compassion and solidarity. Doctors should help their patients to die a dignified death of natural causes, not assist in killing. Physicians are always to care, never to kill.

The full article follows the Abstract.

PALIN WARNS OF OBAMA "DEATH PANEL"

Update 8/9/09 - Gingrich defends Palin on "death panels" remarks. So does Ann Althouse.  Michelle Malkin offers a major roundup of comments and articles, including British examples.  A MUST-READ.   Update 8/10/09 - FLASHBACK:  Death Drugs Cause Uproar in Oregon  (HT: Drudge)

(Original post) - Joseph Russo posts Palin's statement on the Conservatives4Palin website.  Her statement originally appeared on Palin's Facebook site:

As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love

"RIGHT TO DIE" CAN BECOME A "DUTY TO DIE"

Wesley J. Smith has written an article which should serve as a warning:

Imagine that you have lung cancer. It has been in remission, but tests show the cancer has returned and is likely to be terminal. Still, there is some hope. Chemotherapy could extend your life, if not save it. You ask to begin treatment. But you soon receive more devastating news. A letter from the government informs you that the cost of chemotherapy is deemed an unjustified expense for the limited extra time it would provide. However, the government is not without compassion. You are informed that whenever you are ready, it will gladly pay for your assisted suicide. . .   That is exactly what happened last year to two cancer patients in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal.  (more . . .)

DOCTORS DEBATE WHEN TO DECLARE ORGAN DONORS DEAD

Here's the AP story.  It cites other cases on an issue I have posted on before here and here.  The Family Research Council comments on this latest story involving three infants as follows:

We've all debated the question of when life begins, but how about death? That's the latest issue plaguing the medical community as the need for organ donors continues to grow. The latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine reports on three controversial cases in which infants died, and physicians harvested the hearts before the babies met the criteria of "complete, irreversible cessation of brain function or of heart and lung function." The Denver doctors who performed the procedure, which some claim is "tantamount to murder," are at the center of a growing moral debate. George Annas, a Boston University bioethicist told the Washington Post, "This practice cannot be ethically justified . . . . I understand that they would like us to change the definition of death, but they can't do that by themselves."

40% of PATIENTS IN A "VEGETATIVE STATE" ARE MISDIAGNOSED

Is this a cause for alarm or what?!  Read more here.

WHY I AM SKITTISH ABOUT HUMAN ORGAN DONATING

I wrote on this subject before, a post I titled "Why You May Not Want to Check the 'Organ Donor' Box On Your Driver's License."

Now  David Fredosso writes more:

This story, written up in BioEdge, raises an important question. Is there some reason why medical professionals should consider themselves qualified to decide when a living human being's life is no longer valuable? Or should they limit themselves to what they actually studied in school — the practice of medicine?

[O]ver the last few months, the reputation of the American system for gathering organs has been tarnished. In the most dramatic story, an Oklahoma man recovered four hours after doctors had pronounced him "brain-dead" and were preparing to harvest his organs. Zach Dunlap, 21, sustained severe head injuries after a car accident last November. Since

Vatican Says Food, Water Must Be Provided to Vegetative Patients

Click here.  Amazingly (and disappointingly) Fred Thompson didn't have an opinion on the Terri Schiavo case when asked. 

Why You May Not Want to Check the "Organ Donor Box" On Your Driver's License

David Freddoso posts the following:

Organ donations save lives, of course. But transplant organizations also troll hospitals like "vultures," as one bioethicist tells today's WaPo, front page below the fold.

The story centers around a doctor accused of hastening a patient's death so that his organs would still be useful by the time he died — the first time a surgeon has been thus charged in a transplant case.

After a long fight with a degenerative disease, Ruben Navarro appeared close to death. So the hospital caring for him alerted the