Obamacare means centralized control of health care. Centralized control of health care means patients are viewed as members of categories instead of as individuals. The end of patients being viewed as individuals results in the deprofessionalization of medicine. The deprofessionalization of medicine leads to the reign of high-paid bureaucrats, technocrats, and academics, as they write arcane, jargon-filled reports designed to justify dictats from on high to the trench workers in hospitals and at the clinical setting. And that leads to a meltdown of the system, as is happening in the UK’s National Health Service. 

Here’s a small example: A new article published in the British Medical Journal analyzes how the UK’s rationing board–the National Institute on Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)–applies ”quality adjusted life years” (QALY) to end of life care decisions. QALYs involve cost-benefit analyses with “quality of life” the determining factor. (See what I mean about arcane jargon?) 

From, “NICE’s End of Life Decision Making Scheme: Impact on Population Health:”

Our analysis shows that use of NICE’s end of life criteria has resulted in substantial QALY losses. We have assumed that the cost of end of life drugs is met entirely through displacement of other services or treatments in the NHS. Although we do not know whether this has been the case, as the NHS budget is under increasing strain, it seems reasonable to assume that disinvestment will be required. To put the losses into context,the £549m that we estimated has been spent on the nine end of life treatments each year is more than the £505m it cost to provide dialysis for the 21,544 patients with kidney failure in England in 2009.

What does society want? The reallocation of resources to end of life interventions maybe acceptable if society truly values QALYs gained through an extension of life when a patient has a terminal illness more highly than those gained at any other time of life. In this case it would be valid to apply weights to QALYs for end of life treatments, and the QALY loss would represent societal preferences.

Talk about eye-glazing! Talk about a bore fest! And therein lies the danger: Talk about losing the humanity of the decisions being discussed! 

But note, what an individual might want with regard to end of life care seems irrelevant. What matters is quality of life and supposed “societal” preference:

Our analysis has shown that if society does not place a higher value on QALYs obtained at the end of life, the application of the NICE end of life criteria is likely to have resulted insubstantial QALY losses and budgetary pressures to the NHS and population in England and Wales, as cost effective interventions are displaced in favour of less cost effective interventions. If society does give more value to QALYs gained by people at the end of life the cost effectiveness threshold may need to change to reflect this.

That’s the kind of dehumanized system that the Obamacarians intend for us. It’s a technocrats full employment law that treats patients as mere potter’s clay. 

British novelist Julian Barnes says he contemplated suicide over his wife’s death–and still does. From the Telegraph story:

“The question of suicide arrives early, and quite logically,” he writes. “I knew soon enough my preferred method – a hot bath, a glass of wine next to the taps, and an exceptionally sharp Japanese carving knife. I thought of that solution fairly often, and still do.” But he decided his end would be akin to a second death of his wife, since he was “her principal rememberer”. He says he is now equipped with a “firm argument” against suicide, but admits the temptation remains.

And he seems to believe that the suicidal should be assisted if they want:

Last month, Barnes spoke out in favour of assisted dying, telling The Daily Telegraph: “I always thought it was every human’s right to kill yourself if you want to and I think it’s terrible that people have to go to Switzerland and have their relatives threatened with lawsuits or criminal prosecution when they are obviously of sound mind but terrifyingly unsound body.”

But why should such a “right” be limited to the ill? Why not the grieving?  Indeed, such a “right” might have cost Barnes his life.

Not coincidentally, the dying always aren’t. A former doctor-prescribed death supporter in Oregon thanks her doctor for not assisting her suicide–twelve years after being told she had less than six months to live. 

In short all suicidal people should be treated the same; with love, compassion, and suicide prevention. No exceptions. 

The quest for the “perfect child” knows almost no bounds. From the Washington Post opinion blog by Melinda Henninger:

 “Exceptional egg donor needed,” said a recent ad in the Harvard Crimson. The couple looking for that donor, it said, is working with a “prestigious Los Angeles IVF clinic,” in search of a “100% Korean woman” with an excellent education, “outstanding” test scores, “extremely healthy family history,” plus an “altruistic nature,” and a “slim build.” The Nobel Prize in Physics is only optional, I guess, since the ideal candidate sought in such notices must also be under 28.

Apropos of my First Things column today about emotions too often trumping principle, today many believe they not only have a “right” to a child but to the child they want.

But the good news is that the Post commentator–wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles–actually sees the eugenics! And the danger to the “donor!” The column even quotes Jennifer Lahl of the Center for Bioethics and Culture (for which I am a paid consultant):

Jennifer Lahl, who’s spent the last three years traveling from college to college showing her documentary film “Eggsploitation” — interviews with women who did have serious complications as a result of egg donation — says she often feels like a latter-day opponent of Big Tobacco, outmatched by an lobby that’s “strong, wealthy and powerful.”

What she wants is what Big Tobacco finally had to provide: A warning label. A major survey of egg donors in 2008 found that one in five was unaware of any health risks, though with cash on the table, it’s easy to understand how the small print might have been overlooked. Can you even have informed consent with money at stake?

This is a rare case of the MSM actually presenting an issue from the heterodox side of the street–and without letting the emotional centrifuge trump all. Hooray!

Never has so much hype been shoveled than the CURES! CURES! CURES! propaganda that sold embryonic stem cell research to the American public.

That hasn’t worked out so well in actual practice, but the white elephant that is the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine–with a renewal election coming up next year–has spent some of our (Californians’) borrowed money to teach stem cell scientists how to hype the product. From the San Francisco Chronicle story:

The best way to talk about stem cells may be to not talk about stem cells. Instead, scientists are probably better off glossing over the details and avoiding terms like “embryonic” and “pluripotent” stem cells, and focusing instead on what they’re trying to accomplish and who they hope to help someday. Stem cells, after all, are complicated stuff.

That’s one of the lessons gleaned from an exercise Wednesday aimed at helping scientists learn how to sell their research to an unscientific public with a short attention span. The state’s stem cell funding agency hosted an informal contest during which nearly 60 scientists gave video “elevator pitches” – super-fast presentations that are supposed to grab a listener’s attention in just 30 seconds.

That’s the way to avoid the ethical issues. Hype!  

That may mean pulling on people’s heartstrings and talking about devastating diseases like Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s, neither of which has a cure, and both of which are being heavily studied by stem-cell scientists. Trounson and other stem cells experts draw people into their research by talking about real-life implications first, and the lab work later…

And there were some unexpected darlings in the contest. A young researcher from UC San Diego won laughter and the undivided attention of judges for coughing and panting his way through a pitch about his work in repairing and regenerating lung tissue. “Even though no one can live forever, everyone deserves to breathe,” Dr. Asaf Presente said at the conclusion of his pitch, to applause from the judges.

It’s critical that stem cell scientists learn how to talk clearly and engagingly about their work, because their careers – and the field as a whole – depends on public support, Trounson said.

This, from an agency that has been mismanaged and rife with conflicts of interest. But it wants billions more on our credit card, and CURES! CURES! CURES! will be needed again, so now’s the time to teach “the scientists” how to shill like Mad Men. 

I just returned home from Austin, Texas, where I testified against SB 303–a very bad bill that would permit doctors to force DNAR orders on patient’s charts without consent, requiring the patient to “appeal.” (“Do Not Attempt Resuscitation,” aka, DNR, Do Not Resuscitate.”)

More on my testimony later. But relevant to the question, a new study shows improved results from CPR. From, “New Data to Consider in DNR Decisions,” by Judith Graham in the New York Times:

What has not been clear is what happened to older hospital patients who left the hospital after a cardiac arrest. Now a new study in The New England Journal of Medicine of 6,972 elderly people who survived in-hospital cardiac arrests between 2000 and 2008 gives some answers. A year after exiting the hospital, 58.5 percent of these older patients were still alive. Of this group, 48 percent had little or no neurological impairment, while 52 percent had moderate or severe neurological damage. Forty percent of older patients who survived CPR returned to life at home; the remaining 60 percent went to nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities or hospices.

And some of that data is more than ten years old, a long time in the medical field in which advancements come exponentially. Indeed, I am reading a fascinating book entitled Erasing Death, which is, among other issues, about the vast improvements in rehabilitation science and how innovative approaches are leading to amazing recoveries with restored function in people who would once have been “not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead,” as the Wizard of Oz song lyric had it.

Germane to the Texas mess, Graham quotes a physician who properly notes that the issues of CPR and DNR are for patients to decide:

Older people and their families may want to use findings from this report in discussions about end-of-life care and preparing advance directives, which can include “do not resuscitate” orders.“I think physicians should discuss these results with patients and ask what their wishes are should their hearts stop,” Dr. Chan said. Unfortunately, there is no research on how elderly survivors of cardiac arrest rate their quality of life and whether they would choose resuscitation again if they had the opportunity, he noted.

“One of the most important questions to ask is, what is the older person’s current level of functional ability and cognitive status,” Dr. Abella said, observing that “elderly patients with good precardiac arrest function tend to do much better. If an older patient is cognitively intact and in reasonably good health, he or she might want to consider allowing resuscitative care,” Dr. Abella said. “But ultimately, this is a very personal, individualized decision.”

That is the very point I and other opponents of SB 303 made forcefully Tuesday in Austin: The DNR decision should be the patient’s, not the doctor’s or that of strangers meeting in a secret ethics committee deliberation!

Texas supporters of SB 303 claim they only want to prevent patient suffering. Fine. But I also think this has a lot to do with money. With Obamacare coming down the pike, I am not so sure that improved resuscitation results for elderly and other expensive patients will be a welcomed development among our Health Care Technocratic would-be overlords. 

I can’t imagine President Bush’s Council on Bioethics ever countenancing this, but President Obama’s bioethics advisory commission has given conditional approval to test anthrax vaccine on children! From the Reuters story:

“We have to get this precisely right,” panel Chair Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania, said at a news conference. “Many significant steps would have to be taken” before a pediatric anthrax vaccine trial could be considered, she said. But she added that it is important “to develop the knowledge needed to save children’s lives” in the event of an anthrax attack. Balancing the need to protect children against the need to know, for instance, the safe dose of the vaccine, made this “one of the most difficult ethical reviews a bioethics board has ever conducted,” Gutmann said.

Activists said the board was wrong not to oppose unequivocally testing the anthrax vaccine in children. Vera Sharav, founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, predicted that such a study would cause “moral harm for us as a nation and suffering for the children. They should have said, ‘thou shalt not.’”

This is non therapeutic testing in that the children are healthy and their lives and health will be put at risk. Children could definitely be harmed in these tests:

Federal regulations set a high bar for research on kids. If the chance of their benefiting is minuscule or nil, and the potential risk even minimal, children are usually off-limits. The presidential bioethics panel conceded that “there is no prospect of direct benefit to children” who participate in an anthrax-vaccine study, Gutmann said. According to the biodefense board, children in such a study would face more than minimal risk (defined as a risk no greater than that in daily life or at a check-up), mostly because the side effects of the vaccine in children are unknown.

So who’s children will be put forward as the guinea pigs? If they go forward, I suggest the first to volunteer be the children or grandchildren of the council members. I’ll bet there would be no takers.

Jack Kevorkian’s first death was of Janet Adkins, who had early stage Alzheimer’s, but was so fit she beat her son at tennis a few days before she died. (He actually murdered her by lethal injection, according to his own statement to Larry King). Now, one of the Swiss suicide clinics is apparently to host the suicide of a man with Alzheimer’s. From the Daily Mail story:

An 83-year-old dementia sufferer plans to die at the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic, it was claimed yesterday. The British professional man would be the first to end his life at the Swiss clinic purely because of dementia. His plans were publicised by Michael Irwin, a campaigner nicknamed Dr Death, who says he has helped at least 25 people who have died at Dignitas and advised many more. Mr Irwin, 80, has been investigated in the past  over assisted suicide – an offence carrying a 14-year jail sentence – but has never been arrested.

Irwin is a self-promoter and ideologue for the culture of death from way back. (I once debated him on the BBC.) That’s why I am so sure that every effort is being made to help this poor man find a different way, such as interventions and suicide prevention. I mean, that’s what a truly compassionate person would do. 

Compassion? Why that’s Irwin’s middle name!

’The severely disabled and the elderly with medical problems should be equally well discussed nowadays, especially with an ageing population,” Mr Irwin said. “The desire to stop being a burden on one’s family and to avoid squandering financial resources perhaps better spent on grandchildren’s further education could become the final altruistic gesture, especially when combined with a wish to stop prolonging a life that is both futile and very unpleasant.”

But back to Switzerland. Their suicide clinics seem to accept all comers, and the Swiss refused to shut the suicide tourism down. Which is why I call it Kevorkian as a country. 

Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?

Neo eugenicists and would-be genetic engineers often claim that those of us who oppose their intention to engage in biological alchemy do so for strictly religious reasons. Not me. I oppose eugenics in all its forms because it violates the fundamentals of human exceptionalism by assuming that some people can be better than other people based on heightened capacities. The new eugenics merely deploys a kinder, gentler lexicon for the same inherently invidious distinctions described in the vile distinctions that used to be made between the so-called “fit” and “unfit.”

Eugenics has always had a tie-in to Darwinist philosophies–as opposed to the biological theory–which those of that persuasion either deny or get angry about. I don’t want to get into that fight here, but it is good to see biologist and science writer, Stuart A. Newman, giving purely Darwinian reasons for opposing the manipulation of the human embryo for engineering or transhumanist purposes in the Huffington Post. From, “The British Embryo Authority and the Chamber of Eugenics:”

Perhaps the most insidious factor in calls for acceptance of the idea of genetically engineering humans is the profound misconception of the nature of living organisms that underlies it. Organisms differ from machines or computers by being products of evolution rather than design. But complexity that has accumulated over billions of years does not come with blueprints or instruction books, and cannot be reconfigured with predictable outcomes.

Fair enough. But by opposing genetic engineering and eugenics, Professor Newman finds himself in uncomfortable company (from his perspective). So, he has to assure his readers that he remains on the side of scientific righteousness:

Although rejection of the realities of evolution is generally considered to be a sign of scientific ignorance, it unfortunately characterizes the thinking of some professional biologists who are strongly influenced by engineering disciplines. For example, the bio-entrepreneur Craig Venter has claimed that there is “no difference between digital code and genetic code”, and the Stanford University (formerly MIT) “synthetic biologist” Drew Endy asked a New Yorker reporter ”What if we could liberate ourselves from the tyranny of evolution by being able to design our own offspring?”. This showboating, promoted by think tanks and major media outlets, deceives the general populace by promoting the notion of science as magic, and the scientist not as a cautionary Dr. Frankenstein, but as a valorously adept Harry Potter.

The ironic lesson of the new drive toward DNA-based eugenics (of which the mitochondrial replacement techniques would be the thin end of the wedge), is that despite its being the special initiative of an avowedly progressive sector of biomedicine, it actually brings together some of the most regressive strains of traditional and modern society: valuation of people according to their biological characteristics, parental proprietorship, the marauding entrepreneur and evolution denialism. 

That’s funny. Newman is trying to shame his progressive friends out of their folly. Good luck with that. Progressives hubristically believe that “experts” have the answers and can perfect anything. They aren’t going to stop because Newman tries to put them in bed with supposed regressives.

By the way, that last crack is a hit on my intelligent design pals at the Discovery Institute, such as John G. West, who fight eugenics within the context of the Center for Science and Culture. Glad my colleagues are on Newman’s mind. They are not regressive in the least. But that’s okay. I guess Newman is a bit embarrassed to be on the side of the angels for a change. (Joking!) 

But isn’t it nice to see a Darwinist biologist standing against the coming neo eugenics tide.

The Chinese anti-forced abortion legal activist, Chen Guangcheng, made international headlines last year when he escaped house arrest and fled to the United States Embassy in Beijing—this despite being legally blind.  Chen was allowed to leave the country to the USA, but the Chinese government retaliated against his family, particularly his nephew Chen Kegui.

Many have forgotten Chen and his family’s plight, (although I was pleased to see the New York Times running an update today). But not Professor Martin Flaherty of Fordham University Law School and a visiting professor of international relations at Princeton, who works to keep the case in the public eye. I interviewed Professor Flaherty by e-mail. (The interview has been edited for space.)

Smith: How did lawyer Chen Guangcheng manage to use the law to fight forced abortion in authoritarian China, and how did the government punish him?

Flaherty: Chen is actually not a formally trained lawyer, but rather a self-educated legal activist. (As such he is sometimes called a “barefoot lawyer,” a reference to the Maoist policy of sending non-doctors who still had some training to the countryside to fill the need for medical care.) He was able to achieve the success he did both because he is amazingly sharp and because he sought to work within Chinese law, which leaves a surprising degree of room for legal redress. That said, advocates who become too successful or take on too many sensitive causes often endure harsh retaliation. In Chen’s case, local authorities first placed him under house arrest for about a year; then he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison for three years for disturbing traffic; and finally held under illegal house arrest (where he and his wife, Yuan Weijing, were beaten). 

Smith: The government has imprisoned his nephew, Chen Kegui, over an altercation with law enforcement officials during a raid of his family home. I take it you think that there are other agendas at work in his prosecution other than the alleged assault.  

Flaherty: There is no doubt that the arrest and conviction of Chen Guangcheng’s nephew, Chen Kegui, came about in direct retaliation for Guangcheng’s escape, which could not have been more embarrassing for the authorities back home. It therefore came as no surprise that a group of about twenty local officials appeared at the home of Chen Guangcheng’s uncle in the middle of the night to intimidate the family members left behind. When Chen’s nephew defended his family’s home, he was arrested for assault. Chen Kegui was tried contrary to China’s own procedural rules, swiftly convicted, and sent to prison for three years. Sadly, punishing an activist’s family for the “sins” of the activist is all too common. 

Smith: What efforts are being taken diplomatically by the USA and the international community to protect Chen Kegui and other Chinese dissidents?

Flaherty: I should first say that I would not categorize Chen Guangcheng as a dissident, in the sense of someone seeking to transform or overturn the regime, but rather an activist who seeks both to work within and reform the current system. In Chen’s case, U.S. officials in my opinion performed brilliantly; first by negotiating Chen’s freedom as well as making sure he had independent legal advice. I am confident that the U.S. pressed China privately while Chen Kegui’s trial was pending. After Kegui’s conviction, U.S. officials appropriately responded with a strong public condemnation of the trial.  More generally, the U.S. has sought to use the combination of private engagement and public pressure depending upon which approach would more likely lead to constructive results.

Smith: How has the legal community acted to defend Chen Kegui?

Flaherty: The response of the legal community has been mixed. Some lawyers, legal academics, and organizations have been extremely active not just on behalf of Chen and his family, but with regard to persecuted and harassed Chinese lawyers generally. The outstanding example has been Professor Jerome Cohen of NYU Law School, who among other things has served as a legal advisor and mentor to Chen Guangcheng and his family. Joining Professor Cohen is a small NGO he helped found consisting of law professors and practitioners called, “The Committee to Support Chinese Lawyers.” Perhaps the most prominent group has been the New York City Bar Association. The City Bar did a mission and published a related report on the rule of law in China, has taken up the cause of specific lawyers, and recently honored Chen Guangcheng with an honorary membership, an award usually reserved for U.S. Presidents and Supreme Court Justices. 

Conversely, large segments of the U.S. legal community remain ill-informed about the plight of Chen and other legal advocates or remain publicly indifferent. To date no major law firm has expressed concern over the persecution of their Chinese counterparts, largely out of fear of official and economic repercussions. Law schools, sadly, have tended to lag well behind. To give one example, at the height of a brutal crackdown against lawyers in 2011, the deans of self-proclaimed leading U.S. law schools met with Chinese counterparts in Beijing for a “summit” featuring photo opportunities and banquets. None of the U.S. deans expressed any concern or even awareness about the disappearance, torture, and harassment of prominent Chinese human rights attorneys. That needs to change. 

Smith: I have noticed that some environmentalists have defended the one child policy because it has substantially slowed the rate of Chinese population growth.  Have you had any reaction from these activists to the cases of Chen Guangcheng and Chen Kegui? 

Flaherty: No, I have not heard or sought to contact any environmentalists on this point. 

Smith: Our nation is terribly divided between conservatives and liberals, secularists and religionists, etc. It seems to me, though, that defending Chen and other dissidents could be an issue around which heterodox thinkers in the West could find common ground. Do you see any signs that people are willing to forget their other substantial differences?

Flaherty: Absolutely. First of all, American conservatives and liberals in theory already share common ground when it comes to the infringement of fundamental rights such as free speech, religious liberty, torture, extra-judicial killing, genocide and other basic freedoms. The rights that the regime most frequently violates appear along a broad spectrum that includes freedoms that tend to be of special concern to the U.S. liberals and conservatives, including: freedom of speech, freedom of association, reproductive freedom, as well as the right to life. It is no surprise that members of Congress as diverse as Chris Smith (R-NJ) and the late Tom Lantos (D- CA) found common cause in expressing their concern about China’s human rights record.

Smith: What actions would you ask readers to take to the oppression of Chen Guangcheng’s family?

Flaherty: Most importantly, lawyers, businesspeople and academics that do business with China should bring their influence to bear. They should take care that their activities do not contribute to human rights abuses. They should also seek to promote basic values such as the rule of law and fundamental rights. Where appropriate – and in consultation with those experienced in dealing constructively with Chinese officials, they should also raise concerns about specific cases, such as Chen’s, in their dealings.

Smith: Is there anything else readers should know about this situation?

Flaherty: One point to emphasize is that the cases of Chen Guangcheng and his nephew Chen Kegui are merely the tip of a sizeable iceberg. For every Chen Guangcheng, there are numerous lesser-known figures doing similar work and facing similar intimidation. And for every legal advocate that is persecuted, there remain behind that many more ordinary individuals who face repressive policies and actions without the hope of any legal representation or protection. 

Chen demonstrates the sheer power of righteous moral conviction, one of the aspects of our species that makes us so exceptional. His courage and indomitability must be supported. Thanks to Professor Flaherty for staying on the case. 

The atheist proselytizer Richard Dawkins has decided to rattle the cages by claiming on Twitter that a pig is more human than a human fetus. From his Tweet:

With respect to those meanings of “human” that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig.

Dawkins just wants to upset pro lifers by using the “pig” as the example. He should grow up and get a life. And of course, biologically–which is Dawkins’ field, it is utter nonsense. Indeed, he’d fail high school biology with this Tweet:

“Human” features relevant to the morality of abortion include ability to feel pain, fear etc & to be mourned by others.

Idiotic. The ability to “feel pain” has nothing to do with “being human,” biologically or morally. All mammals feel pain. And, of course, fetuses can be–and are–mourned by others, which again isn’t an exclusively human trait. 

He applies junk biology to call a human fetus only “potentially” human:

Of course potential to be human is among fetus’ qualities. But my pig comparison was careful to specify “relevant to morality of abortion.”

Any embryology text book will tell Dawkins that is nonsense. A human fetus is fully “human.” So is a human embryo. So is a human zygote. As Human Embryology and Teratology (page 9) puts it:

[U]nder ordinary circumstances, a genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte. This remains true even though the embryonic genome is not actually activated until 2-8 cells are present, at about 2-3 days…

Despite the various embryonic milestones, however, development is a continuous rather than a saltatory process, and hence the selection of prenatal events would seem to be largely arbitrary [in determining whether a human organism is "a human person in the philosophical sense."]

I would assume that also includes the time when a fetus can feel pain.

And typical of this line of sophistry, he claims his fingernails are “human.”

My hair and fingernails are human but don’t feel pain when I cut them. Embryo before brain develops doesn’t feel pain. Late fetus? Pig?

No, they are human cells that come from an organism that is a member of our species. A human being is an organism of our species. Dawkins is no more human today than when he was a one-celled organism in his mother’s Fallopian tube. Perhaps no more morally astute, either. 

I could not believe my eyes: A judge has ordered the Aurora killer to be injected with a truth serum to test the veracity of a “not guilty by reason of insanity” agreement. From the Guardian story:

Legal and medical experts are questioning the decision of a judge in Colorado to allow James Holmes, the suspected gunman in the Aurora cinema shooting, to be tested with a “truth serum” should he plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Judge William Sylvester ruled that in the event of Holmes pleading insanity his prosecutors would be permitted to interrogate him while he is under the influence of a medical drug designed to loosen him up and get him to talk.

The idea would be that such a “narcoanalytic interview” would be used to confirm whether or not he had been legally insane when he embarked on his shooting spree on 20 July last year. The precise identity of the drug that would be used has not been released, other than a statement that it would be “medically appropriate”, but it would most likely be a short-acting barbiturate such as sodium amytal.

Medically appropriate?  This isn’t treating any medical condition. It is a form of coercion, permitting a plea in return for questioning under a non-efficacious medication, of questionable effectiveness, that moves us toward the kind of interventions one used to see in the Soviet Union. No ethical medical practitioner should have anything to do with it.

If Holmes was legally insane, let him prove his case it in open court. 

The NHS is a disaster, squared–caused by socialized systems, rationing, and centralized control.  Over the years, I have reported here on women giving birth in hospital hallways, people being kept waiting in ambulances before entering ERs in order to permit hospitals to comply with waiting time directives from on high, and myriad other horrors.

An especially egregious debacle even got the attention of Prime Minster David Cameron. From the PM’s statement:

What happened at The Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust between 2005 and 2009 was not just wrong, it was truly dreadful. Hundreds of people suffered from the most appalling neglect and mistreatment. There were patients so desperate for water that they were drinking from dirty flower vases. Many were given the wrong medication, treated roughly, or left to wet themselves and to lie in urine for days. And relatives were ignored or even reproached when pointing out the most basic things which could have saved their loves ones from horrific pain or even death. We can only begin to imagine the suffering endured by those whose trust in our health system was betrayed at their most vulnerable moment. And that is why it is right to make this statement today.

Donald Berwick, given a recess appointment by President Obama to head Medicare where he served for about two years, loves the NHS. He has extolled it above the American system. He supported its centralized manners and rationing of care. In fact, he so loved rationing that the Democratic-controlled Senate didn’t hold a hearing which would have permitted him to be asked about it–and Obama made the appointment to mask Berwick from politically uncomfortable questions.

And now, he gets to be a part of it! From the PM’s statement:

Quality of care means not accepting that bed sores and hospital infections are somehow occupational hazards and a little bit of these things is somehow ok. It is not ok. They are unacceptable.That’s what zero harm means. So I have asked Don Berwick – who has advised President Obama on this issue – to make zero harm a reality in our NHS.

Good luck with that, Dr. Berwick. You love the NHS mess, now let’s see if you can fix it. 

Maybe it’s just me, but this kind of apparent moral equivalence drives me crazy. The animal park in which the intern was killed by the lion has reopened–which is fine–but the owner has seemingly equated the dead woman and the destroyed lion shot by deputies. From the Time story:

A California animal sanctuary where an African lion killed a 24-year-old intern reopened to the public Sunday with the support of the victim’s family. Cat Haven, a private zoo run by the nonprofit Project Survival, observed a moment of silence at noon for Dianna Hanson, who was fatally attacked by the 550-pound male lion Wednesday. Cat Haven founder Dale Anderson said the park was returning to normal operations so the staff could focus on taking care of its remaining 29 wild cats, but “we continue to mourn the loss of two family members.”

Again, maybe it’s me because I am sensitive to even implied equivalencies made between the value of humans and animals: The lion is not the same as the person. It is not as if two cousins died. The tragedy of the woman is so profound. The destruction of the lion is regrettable, but not in the same category.

American assisted suicide advocates pretend they want a very narrow license for “terminally ill” people for whom nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering. It’s pure baloney.  They have a much more radical goal–they just hide it for political reasons. But once people accept the ideological premise of the movement–killing as an acceptable answer to human suffering–then eventually logic will move the needle as it has in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and during the Kevorkian escapade.

But every once in a while, a little truth seeps in. In Kansas, an assisted suicide legalization bill has been introduced, that won’t pass, but which illustrates my point. Note the definition of “terminal illness.” From HB 2108:

(p) “Terminal disease” means an incurable and irreversible disease that has been medically confirmed.

Well, that could include just about anything, from asymptomatic HIV, to arthritis, diabetes under medicinal control (which is incurable and not reversed with insulin), bi-polar disease, and the debilitation of old age.

The goal of assisted suicide is a broad death license. If it is a “right,” then it has to be open to everyone, not just some. That is the real argument we should be having, because if it is legalized, that is what we will eventually become. 

Yet another article about how scientists–who are often chumming for research grant money or otherwise have a direct stake in the research–claim we can live to be 150 or more. The latest in the Sunday Telegraph. From the story:

Drugs that could help people to live to 150 by slowing the ageing process are being developed by scientists. The drugs are synthetic versions of resveratrol, found in red wine, an organic chemical believed to have an anti-ageing effect, by boosting activity of a protein called SIRT1. GSK, the. pharmaceutical firm, is testing them on people with particular medical conditions, namely Type II diabetes and psoriasis, a serious skin condition David Sinclair, professor of genetics at Harvard University, said ageing might not actually be an “irreversible affliction”. 

He said: “Now we are looking at whether there are benefits for those who are already healthy. “Things there are also looking promising. We’re finding that ageing isn’t the irreversible affliction that we thought it was. Some of us could live to 150, but we won’t get there without more research.” He explained that increasing SIRT1 activity improved how well our cells operated, making them less sluggish. In previous experiments, mice, bees and flies given the SIRT1-boosting compounds lived longer.

Ah yes, we never stop looking or the Fountain of Youth. 

Oh, and guess what:

Prof Sinclair is a consultant and inventor on patents licensed to Sirtris, the GSK company running the trials.

This brings to mind the great Porgy and Bess song, “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” in which Sportin’ Life sings:

Methuselah lived 900 years/Methuselah lived 900 years/Who calls that livin’/'When no gal will give in/To no man what’s 900 years.

Talk to me about human immortality when children in Africa aren’t dying of measles and malaria. 

Tasmania’s ruling party seeks to force all doctors to be complicit in abortion by forcing objecting doctors to refer to abortion-friendly colleagues. More than that, the bill would essentially obliterate pro-life crisis pregnancy counseling by forcing anti abortion pregnancy councilors to refer women to counseling that supports abortion. (Victoria, Australia already has an anti-conscience law requiring all doctors to be complicit in abortion.) From the REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH (ACCESS TO TERMINATIONS) BILL 2013:

7. Obligations on medical practitioners and counsellors:..

If a woman seeks a termination or pregnancy options advice from a medical practitioner and the practitioner has a conscientious objection to terminations, the practitioner must refer the woman to another medical practitioner who the first-mentioned practitioner knows does not have a conscientious objection to terminations.

If a woman seeks pregnancy options advice from a counsellor and the counsellor has a conscientious objection to terminations, the counsellor must refer the woman to another counsellor who the first-mentioned counsellor knows does not have a conscientious objection to terminations.

Remember, if they can do this with non therapeutic abortion–which is a consumerist, not a medical procedure–they can to it with assisted suicide too. (Not coincidentally, Tasmania is seeing a big assisted suicide legalization drive.)

If it can happen there, it will be tried here. The pro abortion lobby really does want to drive all medical professionals unwilling to take human life out of the medical profession, and they especially want to obliterate pro life crisis pregnancy counseling. But like I always say, the culture of death brooks no dissent. 

The case of the nurse who refused CPR to an elderly woman continues to ricochet around the media and culture. I have heard people bend over backwards to say the nurse was right, because–well because.

The family says she didn’t want CPR. But the nurse at the independent living center certainly didn’t seem to know that. If she did, why call 911, and indeed, why not tell the 911 operator that the woman had an advance directive stating no resuscitation? To the contrary, from everything I have read–and I still think there should be an investigation–it would appear that the facility had a blanket “No CPR” policy that the nurse was following so she wouldn’t lose her job. Was that the cost of residential admission?

Beyond the specifics of the case, the question becomes when should CPR be attempted and when not?  Certainly there are cases in which it should and when it shouldn’t. In this regard, an article in the Huffington Post by Janice Van Dyck asks, “Do We Have a Duty to Resuscitate?” She concludes:

Do we have a duty to perform CPR? Not in my mind. The only obligation I can see all of us having is to know what we want at the time of our deaths and to advise those closest to us and our medical providers of our decisions. Advance care directives, health care surrogates, physician orders for life sustaining treatments (POLST), and do not resuscitate orders (DNR) are the vehicles for us to remove the questions and provide the answers so our names don’t make the headlines tomorrow.

That certainly applies in controlled situations. But what about outside of a hospital or nursing home: When in doubt, what should the duty be? I say, resuscitate. The 87-year old woman’s life must be viewed as just as important as anyone else’s. 

Bestiality is a distasteful subject, but it–along with other sexual perversions such as pedophilia–are slowly being pushed toward normalization, so notice must be taken. Latest example: Yale hosted its annual sex conference in which bestiality was apparently labeled merely one form of “sexual diversity.”  From the CampusReform.Org story:

Survey responses revealed that nine percent of attendees had been paid for sex, 3 percent had engaged in bestiality, and 52 percent had participated in “consensual pain” during sex, according to an article published in the Yale Daily News on Event director Giuliana Berry ’14 told Campus Reform in an interview on Monday that the workshop was brought to campus to teach students not to automatically judge people who may have engaged in these sorts of activities, but rather to respond with “understanding” and “compassion.” ”People do engage in some of these activities that we believe only for example perverts engage in,” she said. “What the goal is is to increase compassion for people who may engage in activities that are not what you would personally consider normal.” McDevitt referred to the range of activities discussed in the workshop as “sexual diversity.”

Over the years, I have documented several similar efforts to normalize bestiality. For example:

• Peter Singer has notoriously claimed that bestiality is okay, essentially just two animals rubbing intimate body parts.
• A review in the New York Times Book Review applauded the graphic depiction of chimp/woman sex;
• The Huffington Post’s resident bioethicist, Jacob Appel, similarly sought to debunk opposition to bestiality by comparing zoophilia to playing Frisbee with a dog;

When Washington legislation was introduced to make bestiality a crime (after a man died having sex with a horse), some resisted the idea.  Others could only lamely defend outlawing bestiality based on the inability of the animals to give consent!

Here’s the bottom line. As I wrote elsewhere, bestiality is a blow against human exceptionalism. From my piece, “Horse Sense:”

Bestiality is so very wrong not only because using animals sexually is abusive, but because such behavior is profoundly degrading and utterly subversive to the crucial understanding that human beings are unique, special, and of the highest moral worth in the known universe–a concept known as “human exceptionalism.”… Nothing would more graphically demonstrate our unexceptionalism than countenancing human/animal sex. Thus, when Roach’s legislation[to criminalize bestiality] passes [it eventually did], the law’s preamble should explicitly state that one of the reasons bestiality is condemned through law is that such degrading conduct unacceptably subverts standards of basic human dignity and is an affront to humankind’s inestimable importance and intrinsic moral worth.

It didn’t, by the way. 

I know that this is just one small symposium. But it was at Yale! That matters. So does the ongoing deconstruction of the crucial understanding that human beings are exceptional and that fully embracing our unique dignity matters to the human future. 

An elderly woman residing in an independent living center collapsed and a nurse refused CPR–because of the facility’s “policy.”  This seems like a real scandal, but it needs a little unpacking. From the LA Times story:

Bakersfield fire dispatcher Tracey Halvorson pleaded with the woman on the other end of the line to start CPR on an elderly woman who was barely breathing. “It’s a human being,” Halvorson said, speaking quickly. “Is there anybody that’s willing to help this lady and not let her die?” The woman paused. “Um, not at this time.”

According to a 911 tape released by the Bakersfield Fire Department, the woman told Halvorson that she was a nurse at Glenwood Gardens, a senior living facility in Bakersfield. But the nurse refused to give the woman CPR as directed by the dispatcher, saying it was against the facility’s policy for staff to do so, according to the tape.

Sounds utterly damning. But a word of explanation: Had the woman signed a Do Not Resuscitate order, the proper course would have been to comfort the patient but not try to revive–and, by the way, not call 911. But that was not the case here. Rather, refusing to resuscitate was facility policy:

Jeffrey Toomer, executive director of Glenwood Gardens, issued a statement on behalf of the facility, extending his sympathies to the Bayless family. But Toomer also defended the nurse, saying she followed policy. “In the event of a health emergency at this independent living community our practice is to immediately call emergency medical personnel for assistance and to wait with the individual needing attention until such personnel arrives,” he said. “That is the protocol we followed. As with any incident involving a resident, we will conduct a thorough internal review of this matter, but we have no further comments at this time.”

The Gardens is apparently not a nursing home, per se. Perhaps the facility feared a lawsuit if CPR was done inexpertly. But a “blanket” do not resuscitate policy regardless of the circumstances?  When dealing with elderly clients or patients? Big trouble potentially on the way.

I think it would be worth knowing if this kind of policy is ubiquitous within the industry, and if so, whether regulatory engagement is required. On a human level, this policy seems hard to justify.

Here we go again. A woman committed suicide and it is depicted in the press as a positive–”on her own terms.” And note, she was not terminally ill, the usual excuse for supporting suicide. From the Globe and Mail story, “A Social Activist’s Ultimate Legacy: Advocating for the Right to Die:”

Ruth Goodman died the way she lived – on her own terms. She campaigned for social justice all her adult life: by training as a welder to earn the same wages as men in wartime shipyards, by speaking out for freedom of expression during the McCarthy era, by picketing napalm manufacturers in Seattle during the Vietnam War and by challenging the abortion laws in Canada after she and her husband moved north to Vancouver with their young sons to evade the voracious American military draft.

Why should life be prolonged for an aged social activist who believed the right to die was the ultimate human choice? That’s the question raised in the aftermath of Ms. Goodman’s death by her own hand and in her own bed on Feb. 2. “People are allowed to choose the right time to terminate their animals’ lives and to be with them and provide assistance and comfort, right to the end. Surely, the least we can do is allow people the same right to choose how and when to end their lives,” she wrote in a suicide note made public by her now middle-aged sons…

This impacts others, who may be on the edge of suicide and reading the story of suicide as a positive could push them over. That’s why the WHO urges media not to publish pro suicide stories–not that it probably even crossed the minds of the reporter and editors of the Globe and Mail.

That point aside, this is where we now are–thanks in large part to the euthanasia/assisted suicide movement and a complicit media that extols many suicides these days as a matter of social justice. Suicide is being transformed into a human right before our very eyes. But if it’s a “right” that means for anyone and any reason:

Death on demand. Reader take warning!