States' rights vs. "culture of life"

[Mariner]

Archangel, is with physicians who are generally educated to prolong life rather than provide palliative opiates that might increase the risk of death via suppressing respiration. As the discipline of palliative care has evolved, there is increased emphasis on patient comfort in terminal situations.

The Margaret Sanger thing is really something. I'd never heard that previously. Of course, just because its founder had flaws doesn't mean the whole idea is flawed. One of the leading theories for the drop in crime in the past three decades, for example, is that contraception and abortion prevented a whole generation of unwanted/neglected children from growing into criminals. Research is very clear that the vast majority of people with Antisocial Personality Disorder (i.e. criminals, people with no conscience) were severely abused or neglected in the first year of life. 80% have abnormal EEGs, suggesting brain damage from physical abuse, fights, or falls.

Conservatives who really want to help this situation would do well to support vastly increased funding for social service and adoption agencies, which lack the capacity to remove all the children who need it from abusive and neglectful parents. Instead, the conservative movement has chosen to emphasize "family reunification." I testified in court recently in a child abuse case where the child had 80 documented acts of violence, including cigarette burns and squeezed genitals, by his mother, and yet, under the banner of "family reunification," was returned to the care of this mother for more abuse. At this point, the child is permanently damaged, physically and psychologically. The social service system in the state where this occurred remains underfunded; the state is reeling from cuts in block grants for social services from the Federal Government.

Mariner.

 

[Mariner]

the problem with illegal immigration from a doctor's point of view is that we're ethically obligated to provide medical care. I can't look at someone with a skin cancer and say, "Can I see your INS card?" I have to refer that person for care. States have recognized that if they don't provide medical care to illegal immigrants, they simply face larger costs when the person returns with advanced skin cancer and now needs more expensive treatment than a simple $400 local excision.

I have no idea what the correct answer is to the illegal immigration problem. The numbers are staggering. I think I read that we employ something like 11,000 agents, and yet an estimated half-million or more illegal aliens cross the border successfully each year.

Mariner.

 

[Gunny]

Don't you mean when is it okay for the states to start executing conservatives? I mean we are clearly insane for disagreeing with the liberals.

I really dont like this culture of death the court has been advocating. First abortion, now this. When you keep devaluing life bad things happen.

I totally agree, thus my post. I doubt most Germans had any idea that open discrimination against Jews, gypsies, slavs, the indigent et al would lead to extermination camps, and would likely find the suggestion absurd.

But it happened.

 

[pegwinn]

The one right you have that no one can legislate is the right to die.

Notice that suicide isn't illegal? Only attempted (failed) suicide.

My brother in law had a self controlled morphine drip. He was counseled on the effects of overdose. He was counseled that the drip was there to provide him with relief from the pain. He was counseled that due to the extreme nature of the pain that a doctor could not prescribe a set amount of morphine to dull the pain, thus the ability to self medicate. The physician provided the education of the risks and rewards of the medication. What my brother in law did was his choice.

Beats eating a gun, botching a hanging, or taking a header out the third floor.

 

[jAZ]

I'm sure the libs crossed their hearts and swore to never ask for any further latitude. :duh3:

Can I use this quote in the Impeach Bush For Illegal Wire Tapping discussion on another thread?

 

[Avatar4321]

I can totally understand the pure pro-life position, opposing abortion, execution, and euthanasia. (Although this position is vulnerable to questions about abortion in the case of rape or the mother's life being at risk.) In this case, the 'culture of death,' as you put it, was supported by the people of Oregon. The court, upholding the conservative principle of federalism, did not feel the federal gov't had the power to intervene.

Re: Texas, I find it astonishing that any major hospital would act in this manner, even if supported by law. The current standard of medical practice is to provide care regardless of ability to pay. Very few of us actually could afford the expense of extreme situations such as this woman's; our insurance policies often run out at a certain point. Generally, Medicare or the hospital itself steps in to cover the gap. As hospitals come under increasing financial pressure (in large part due to the growing number of people with no insurance), there have been issues about sending people away to other hospitals, for example. But I've never previously heard something like this--which sounds more like an execution than an appropriate discontinuation from hopeless medical care. Beyond the medical ethical issue, I can't fathom how Bush would sign such a law, which seems to offend both liberal and conservative principles. The only people who could like it would seem to be hospital accountants and insurance companies. I wonder who lobbied for the law?

Mariner.

I think the 14th amendment gives the Federal government authority to intervene in matters of life.

 

[Mariner]

the Supreme Court didn't agree with you, and not by a 5/4 split either, but 6/3.

Mariner.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

the problem with illegal immigration from a doctor's point of view is that we're ethically obligated to provide medical care. I can't look at someone with a skin cancer and say, "Can I see your INS card?" I have to refer that person for care. States have recognized that if they don't provide medical care to illegal immigrants, they simply face larger costs when the person returns with advanced skin cancer and now needs more expensive treatment than a simple $400 local excision.

I have no idea what the correct answer is to the illegal immigration problem. The numbers are staggering. I think I read that we employ something like 11,000 agents, and yet an estimated half-million or more illegal aliens cross the border successfully each year.

Mariner.

Why didn't you just remove it right there in the exam room. He was there. You had a scalpel I'm sure. Nobody would have known. Is it always about money with you doctors?

 

[William Joyce]

I think the 14th amendment gives the Federal government authority to intervene in matters of life.

Yikes!

If this is so, there is no need for the rest of the Constitution. Or a federal system, for that matter. Might as well have the feddies regulating the length of pickle stems. Oh, wait. They already do. The founding fathers would be so proud.

I'm with the majority on this. If having limited federal government means anything, it means that states, and only states, regulate abortion, medicine, doctors, death. There is simply no rational reason why the federal government is better equipped to handle this than the state government.

 

[JohnStOnge]

As a Libertarian conservative, I come down on the side of State's rights. I do not believe the Constitution really gives the Federal Government the power to become invovled in such matters. I'm also disappointed that Scalia and Thomas, who purport to be supportive of the original understanding of the Constitution, took the positions they took. I think the chances that the Framers would've understood the Constitution to support the US Government's position in this case are pretty much zero.

To me, in this case, issues such as medical ethics and potential for having people pressured into suicide are not the point. The question is one of jurisdiction. I do not believe that the Constitution, as it was written and as it was understood by those who ratified it along the way through the start and various Amendments, gives the Federal Government power to become involved in this question.

I realize that we've allowed the Federal Government to become involved in just about anything it wishes to become involved in through lax interpretation of the Commerce Clause to include anything that might AFFECT interstate commerce, but that is a crock. That's not what the Framers intended.

 

[Annie]

As a Libertarian conservative, I come down on the side of State's rights. I do not believe the Constitution really gives the Federal Government the power to become invovled in such matters. I'm also disappointed that Scalia and Thomas, who purport to be supportive of the original understanding of the Constitution, took the positions they took. I think the chances that the Framers would've understood the Constitution to support the US Government's position in this case are pretty much zero.

To me, in this case, issues such as medical ethics and potential for having people pressured into suicide are not the point. The question is one of jurisdiction. I do not believe that the Constitution, as it was written and as it was understood by those who ratified it along the way through the start and various Amendments, gives the Federal Government power to become involved in this question.

I realize that we've allowed the Federal Government to become involved in just about anything it wishes to become involved in through lax interpretation of the Commerce Clause to include anything that might AFFECT interstate commerce, but that is a crock. That's not what the Framers intended.

Are you speaking to the 'suicide case' or another? I just want to be sure I'm understanding you. Glad to see you've come back! Rep coming your way.

 

[Mariner]

with us doctors--hardly, RightWing. My brother, a heart surgeon, earns ten times what I'll ever make in my work with deaf people. If I wanted to make money, I'd be at Harvard Business School, not the medical school. Most of the doctors I know devote themselves to their patients and communities, or their research, which is a particularly time-intensive and poorly paid activity. Haven't you noticed how often I post at 2 or 3am, having seen my last patient at 9pm? No one's paying for that 4 or 5 hours of insurance paperwork that I do at the end of the day. I try to balance that type of community service work with consultation, teaching, and other work that pays a little better, so I don't burn out.

I decided a long time ago that, while money is nice, and a certain amount is necessary, it doesn't buy happiness. My experience observing a lot of wealthy people in West Cambridge (along with a lot of poor people at work) seems to confirm this, as does plenty of research on the issue.

Mariner.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

I decided a long time ago that, while money is nice, and a certain amount is necessary, it doesn't buy happiness. Mariner.

So why do lefties reduce all life complexities to a simple dialectical materialism?

 

[William Joyce]

So why do lefties reduce all life complexities to a simple dialectical materialism?

HA! Good question. If all ya need is love, as the libbies sing, why are they so damn keen to take money out of my wallet and give it to their friends?