How dare he act to protect the sanctity of life at a time like this!
Say again?
Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber said “Given everything that the country is going through right now, with the country trying to respond to anthrax, why John Ashcroft picked this moment to inject this divisive issue into the public debate is just beyond me.”
“Divisive issue”? I guess the Oregon Democrat just can’t see that the anthrax efforts are indeed efforts to protect and preserve life. It just depends on whose life we’re talking about.
Not to be left out, and following the same script, the executive director of the Compassion in Dying Federation in Oregon, George Eighmey, is quoted as saying “It’s beyond my comprehension why, in the face of what’s happening in the world today, that this would be a priority of any type for our attorney general.”
These men seem to have lost the point that we are involved in “what’s happening in the world today” because of the deliberate killing of some 5,000-and-counting innocent civilians in an attack on us, the U.S.A. It is an issue of the value and protection of life.
These men don’t seem to realize that “everything the country is going through right now” – from the war on terrorism to ordering stores of vaccines and producing new ones, to organizing homeland defense strategies, to putting in place higher levels of security at airports and other vulnerable locations to warning all Americans that we are in a state of alert – is a part of an overview that puts great value on life. Everyone’s life. Regardless of age, sex, health, marital status, race, religion or even political persuasion.
What we’re doing illustrates that this country rests firmly on the foundation of a belief that life and the individual have value and are worthy of defense.
What got these men and their supporters in such a fit was a move by Attorney General John C. Ashcroft to block the assisted-suicide law in Oregon. Ashcroft said that using federally controlled drugs to take the life of a terminally ill patient is not a “legitimate medical purpose” for the drugs.
Under the order, doctors who write such prescriptions face suspension or revocation of their federal drug license. This ruling reverses one by former AG Janet Reno, who prohibited federal agents from moving against doctors acting under Oregon’s law.
It should be noted that under Ashcroft’s ruling, doctors would not face criminal prosecution under the order and, indeed, there is no restriction on the use of controlled substances for legitimate pain management.
Immediately after the ruling early last week, the state of Oregon sued the government to block the directive and, by the end of the week, U.S. District Judge Robert Jones granted a temporary restraining order which is in effect until November 20.
While all the headlines are on whether doctors can prescribe lethal drugs for the specific purpose of killing the patient, there is a more insidious move within medicine that’s getting too little attention.
It’s also something that can affect every single one of us. The bigger problem is not us deciding we want to die and getting doctors to help kill us – the bigger problem is that medicine today has begun deciding on its own that our time to die has come and refusing treatment so that we do die. I call that murder. Their term is “futile care.” It’s pervasive in hospitals across the country.
A decision is made by doctors or other “health-care professionals” that further “treatment” isn’t warranted. They refuse to administer it. The end result is that the patient dies. The death certificate may read cancer or kidney failure, or pneumonia or heart attack, or natural causes.
That may not be a “lie,” but hidden behind the semantics is the dirty little secret that by refusing assistance, i.e., antibiotics to help a patient fight off an infection, the patient gets pneumonia and dies. But he was suffering from cancer, his “quality of life” was not good and the prognosis was terminal. What a shame pneumonia killed him.
They may rationalize their decision, but by not doing something, they cause the death. By the way, it also frees up a hospital bed and saves the HMO money.
Don’t be swayed by the specious argument that this only happens to comatose patients at Death’s door. Decisions are made to stop a simple IV fluid drip and blood pressure pills. The end result is death by dehydration, but that doesn’t make the death certificate. It happened to my father.
As far as “the system” is concerned, your life only has value if you’re healthy, young and able to pay. Beyond that, it’s open season and there’s no law to protect you.
