Mary Neal's Sharebook 

Published July 27, 2008

Be Careful, Bush Administration!  Stay Back, Doctor Kevorkian!

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/be-careful-bush-administration-stay-back-doctor-kevorkian

A wise man wrote, “We all face disabilities sooner or later, if we live long enough.”  Posted below in this article is one of the most life-affirming messages and videos ever. The video illustrates plainly what is wrong with Kevorkian reasoning.  

The life-affirming message in this video might be particularly important considering the news report from Compassion & Choices, an organization that advocates for “choice and care at the end of life.”  The organization issued the following report:

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http://www.compassionandchoices.org/

08.19.08 ~ Bush Administration moves to undercut end-of-life care and choices

Compassion & Choices today protested draft regulations circulating within the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that would allow health care workers to deny treatment based on their religious or moral beliefs.

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The draft was not provided at the site of Compassion & Choices' article.  It would seem unnecessary for the Bush Administration to make provisions to protect the rights of medical providers unless assisted suicide is expected to become widely available in the U.S.  Apparently, the groundwork is being laid.  No doubt, many doctors and nurses believe helping patients kill themselves is wrong.  Hopefully, they also strenuously object to actually killing their patients by lethal injection. 

The idea of widespread euthanasia and assisted suicide might be excellent news for insurance companies, and it certainly would be one way to control government costs under any eventual national health insurance.  Around here, money often trumps "religious or moral beliefs," and money apparently rewrites the Hippocratic Oath, which has several versions.  Doctors swaring the original oath stated, "I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel."  The oath was written by Hippocrates, a celebrated Greek physician who died around 380 to 360 B.C., so the oath has been around a while.  Over time, there have been revisions to the oath, and it is not mandatory for all doctors to make this pledge. See more about it at this link:  http://members.tripod.com/nktiuro/hippocra.htm.
 
One problem with making assisted suicide and physician-administered lethal injection legitimate choices for patients is this:  First, terminal patients choosing to end their own lives becomes an "acceptable" choice; second, it gets to be the expected choice; and finally, death could become the ONLY AVAILABLE CHOICE for very sick people under their insurance plans.  Can you see that as being a possible progression?  A likely progression? 

I suppose nursing home owners may soon need to consider other businesses.  Elderly people generally suffer from a chronic condition with no expectation of recovery, called old age.

Assisted suicide is already legal in a number of places.  I recently read of a woman who was “assisted,” and her chronic health condition was not physical, but mental.  She suffered from manic depression.  Such reports do not bode well for depressed people or folks with other mental dysfunctions who might easily be led to answer "yes" to just about anything. 

The problem with all of these sentences of Life in Prison with No Chance of Parole is they have created a growing population of aging convicts who presumably pose no threat to society.  Denying care for chronically and terminally ill convicts would address that financial burden, too, not that prisons offer great hospice care even now.  Yet, it would be even cheaper to provide NO medical intervention for dying prisoners except lethal injection.

That takes care of the elderly, the mentally ill, and aging prisoners - first.

While the Bush Administration is drafting legislation protecting medical providers from rendering what they hold to be objectionable medical services, I hope that legislation can never be construed to limit a terminal or chronically ill patient’s right to receive care and prolong life to the full extent of medical science.  Who knows when a doctor or nurse may decide it is against “their religious or moral beliefs” not to kill their suffering patients?  Numerous doctors and nurses have been found guilty of doing just that.  It seems appropriate at this juncture for the Bush Administration to spell out certain protections for the patients just as it is reportedly doing for medical providers.  The provision should read:  "Don't kill folks who did not make that request in a Living Will while in a reasonable state of good health and sound mind."

That language would protect patients from having "loving" relatives decide when their dying day will be, also.  Allowing others to make life and death decisions regarding debilitated patients requires more trust than many people are worthy of, and giving third parties that power clearly violates disabled citizens’ inalienable right to life.  Or will the right to life eventually be nullified for terminally ill and chronically ill patients, except the wealthy?

If assisted suicide ever becomes widely available, the presumption about all patients should be that they want to live, unless there is a Living Will the patient executed while in good health and sound mind.  Medical intervention should be rendered as needed to all warm bodies except in the face of brain death, or the state illegally renders third parties the right to terminate life.  

One would hope that relatives are truthful when they come forward and testify that a debilitated patient would want to “die with dignity” (be euthanized) rather than continue living with her physical limitations.  But how can the courts be sure the third party is not really interested in hurrying the life insurance payout, dodging the next-of-kin responsibility of delivering day-to-day care without appearing to desert a dying relative, or that the concerned relative is not simply angry over a casserole dish never returned.

Terri Schivio’s husband is probably the only man found by the judiciary to be incapable of lying.  Terri was starved to death over the objections of her family because of testimony by her husband, who had a new romantic interest.  Although Terri had no Living Will, her husband claimed to know that she would not want to live “like that.”  Recently, the mother of Delaware resident, Lauren Richardson, petitioned the court to remove her daughter’s feeding tube and allow Lauren to “die with dignity” over the objections of Lauren’s father.  Hopefully, Lauren’s mother has her daughter’s best interest at heart, but how can the court know?  Lauren is a young mother who was a drug user before her illness.  Some parents are pretty disappointed and embarrassed when children have such issues and may prefer not to deal with them any longer.  See more about Lauren at this link:  http://www.nowpublic.com/world/delaware-says-no-killing-brain-damaged-woman

Presumably, the Bush Administration's legislation might also be used to give medical providers the right to refuse to perform other medical services they deem immoral or irreligious without fear of reprisal from their employers.  For instance, some medical professionals may find it objectionable to provide care for transgender operations or to help a male give birth.  (Yes, it has happened, according to an ABC report at this link:  http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5302756&page=1) 

Before smoking another cigarette or doing another bungee jump, see the right to death laws state-by-state at this link:  http://www.euthanasia.com/bystate.html

Ready now for the MOST LIFE-AFFIRMING VIDEO EVER?  First, a brief introduction by the producers:

This is a true story.  Read all this intro and then watch the video.

The son asked his father, 'Dad, will you take part in a marathon with me?'  The father who, despite having a heart condition, says 'Yes'.

They went on to complete the marathon together.  Father and son went on to join other marathons, the father always saying 'Yes' to his son's request of going through the race together.  One day, the son asked his father, 'Dad, let's join the Ironman together.'  To this request, his father said 'Yes,' too.

For those who don't know, Ironman is the toughest triathlon ever.  The race encompasses three endurance events of a 2.4 mile (3.86 kilometer) ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile (180.2 kilometer) bike ride, and ending with a 26.2 mile (42.195 kilometer) marathon along the coast of the Big Island; Father and son went on to complete the race together.

NOW TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND WATCH THIS VIDEO:

Various "Translations" of the 6th Commandment

'Thou shalt not kill any living thing,' for life is given to all by God, and that which God has given, let not man taketh it away.  ~Jesus, Gospel of the Holy Twelve, (earliest known recorded words of Jesus)

"Thou shalt not kill."~Exodus 20:13 Authorized version of King James

"You shall not murder."  ~
New International Version