States' rights vs. "culture of life"

[Mariner]

I'm curious where people here come down on the issue of the Oregon suicide law, which pits two conservative principles against each other--states' rights and the "culture of life."

Personally, as a physician, I am extremely wary of this law. Major Depression is a treatable disorder which causes at least 20,000 suicides a year. I do not feel convinced that having two physicians examine someone is sufficient to conclude that 1. the patient only has 6 months to live and 2. s/he does not have a Major Depression. Furthermore, it's too easy for me to imagine family situations where pressure would be applied to end things early, for others' benefit, e.g. a quicker inheritance or life insurance payment.

In other words, I'm with Bush, Scalia, and Thomas on this one--that's a first for this Cambridge liberal!

Here's one news report:

Supreme Court Upholds Oregon Physician-Assisted Suicide Law

By Peggy Peck, Managing Editor, MedPage Today
January 17, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 - The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld Oregon's 1997 law allowing physicians to aid in the suicide of terminally ill adults. The court's decision was by a six-to-three majority.

The high court decision was a defeat for the Bush administration, which had vigorously battled the Oregon law even after it had already been upheld in two lower Federal courts. The administration argued that physicians who prescribed drugs to help patients end their lives were violated federal drug interdiction laws-the laws used to prosecute drug dealers.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority decision, said the government has the right to prosecute drug dealers and to pass laws that regulate drug safety. But the Oregon law is limited, he reasoned, because it applied only to terminal patients who are expected to live six months or less. The law requires that at least two doctors agree on that prognosis.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined Justices Anthony Scalia and Clarence Thomas in dissent.

* * *

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/tb/2499

 

[Gunny]

I'm curious where people here come down on the issue of the Oregon suicide law, which pits two conservative principles against each other--states' rights and the "culture of life."

Personally, as a physician, I am extremely wary of this law. Major Depression is a treatable disorder which causes at least 20,000 suicides a year. I do not feel convinced that having two physicians examine someone is sufficient to conclude that 1. the patient only has 6 months to live and 2. s/he does not have a Major Depression. Furthermore, it's too easy for me to imagine family situations where pressure would be applied to end things early, for others' benefit, e.g. a quicker inheritance or life insurance payment.

In other words, I'm with Bush, Scalia, and Thomas on this one--that's a first for this Cambridge liberal!

Here's one news report:

Supreme Court Upholds Oregon Physician-Assisted Suicide Law

By Peggy Peck, Managing Editor, MedPage Today
January 17, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 - The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld Oregon's 1997 law allowing physicians to aid in the suicide of terminally ill adults. The court's decision was by a six-to-three majority.

The high court decision was a defeat for the Bush administration, which had vigorously battled the Oregon law even after it had already been upheld in two lower Federal courts. The administration argued that physicians who prescribed drugs to help patients end their lives were violated federal drug interdiction laws-the laws used to prosecute drug dealers.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority decision, said the government has the right to prosecute drug dealers and to pass laws that regulate drug safety. But the Oregon law is limited, he reasoned, because it applied only to terminal patients who are expected to live six months or less. The law requires that at least two doctors agree on that prognosis.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined Justices Anthony Scalia and Clarence Thomas in dissent.

* * *

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/tb/2499

Speaking of Nazi Germany, when do we get to the part where it's okay for the states to determine which incurably insane people are undeserving of life?

 

[dilloduck]

Speaking of Nazi Germany, when do we get to the part where it's okay for the states to determine which incurably insane people are undeserving of life?

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

 

[Gunny]

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

It's just a step. This will naturally conflict with suicide laws and definitely life insurance companies. They're next.

 

[Hobbit]

I think euthenasia is appalling, and okppose it at every turn. However, as long as due process has been given, I feel that the federal government does not have the right to interfere. While the bid to say that it was improperly dispensed drugs was their best bet, as many drug laws are federal, but the feds still had no jurisdiction. So far, the Oregan euthenasia laws meet the due process statute and the only way to top them is to either redefine the statute or make a new federal law.

 

[manu1959]

i think if you want to kill youself you should be allowed to....if you need help from a doctor...fine by me

my will says:

after 60 days 3 doctors from 3 different med groups evaluate me, if the prognosis is terminal

pull the plug, inject me whatever

then

viking funeral

 

[5stringJeff]

I think euthenasia is appalling, and okppose it at every turn. However, as long as due process has been given, I feel that the federal government does not have the right to interfere. While the bid to say that it was improperly dispensed drugs was their best bet, as many drug laws are federal, but the feds still had no jurisdiction. So far, the Oregan euthenasia laws meet the due process statute and the only way to top them is to either redefine the statute or make a new federal law.

I tend to agree. While I am no fan of assisted suicide, the federal drug laws are not sufficient to regulate it. I think the Bush administration made it hard on itself by choosing those laws to try and overturn the suicide law. The federal government is going to have to ban assisted suicide straight up if it wants an effective ban, and not try to sidestep it like they tried to do.

 

[Mariner]

I'm dense--I didn't understand what you were referring to in terms of Nazis and incurably insane people... ?

Mariner.

 

[Mariner]

George Bush speaks of the culture of life. I was rather surprised to read in today's Times that he signed a law in Texas that permits disconnecting life support from a patient who can't pay for the care. In December, a conscious 27 year old woman, who did NOT want to die, was disconnected from her ventilator at Baylor due to this law:

"Baylor disconnected her ventilator on Dec. 12, invoking a law signed in 1999 by George W. Bush, then governor of Texas. The law relieved doctors of an obligation to provide life-sustaining treatment 10 days after having provided formal notice that such treatment was found to be medically "inappropriate."

Unlike the comatose Terri Schiavo, Ms. Habtegiris was fully conscious and responsive when she was disconnected, according to her brother. She wanted to continue breathing. Her brother and several other family members have described the agonizing spectacle of her death by suffocation over the next 16 minutes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/business/19scene.html?pagewanted=print

Mariner

 

[dilloduck]

George Bush speaks of the culture of life. I was rather surprised to read in today's Times that he signed a law in Texas that permits disconnecting life support from a patient who can't pay for the care. In December, a conscious 27 year old woman, who did NOT want to die, was disconnected from her ventilator at Baylor due to this law:

"Baylor disconnected her ventilator on Dec. 12, invoking a law signed in 1999 by George W. Bush, then governor of Texas. The law relieved doctors of an obligation to provide life-sustaining treatment 10 days after having provided formal notice that such treatment was found to be medically "inappropriate."

Unlike the comatose Terri Schiavo, Ms. Habtegiris was fully conscious and responsive when she was disconnected, according to her brother. She wanted to continue breathing. Her brother and several other family members have described the agonizing spectacle of her death by suffocation over the next 16 minutes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/business/19scene.html?pagewanted=print

Mariner

I guess no one could afford to keep her alive. It's like other things in life---if you can't afford it, you don't get to participate in it.

 

[Avatar4321]

Speaking of Nazi Germany, when do we get to the part where it's okay for the states to determine which incurably insane people are undeserving of life?

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.

 

[archangel]

George Bush speaks of the culture of life. I was rather surprised to read in today's Times that he signed a law in Texas that permits disconnecting life support from a patient who can't pay for the care. In December, a conscious 27 year old woman, who did NOT want to die, was disconnected from her ventilator at Baylor due to this law:

"Baylor disconnected her ventilator on Dec. 12, invoking a law signed in 1999 by George W. Bush, then governor of Texas. The law relieved doctors of an obligation to provide life-sustaining treatment 10 days after having provided formal notice that such treatment was found to be medically "inappropriate."

Unlike the comatose Terri Schiavo, Ms. Habtegiris was fully conscious and responsive when she was disconnected, according to her brother. She wanted to continue breathing. Her brother and several other family members have described the agonizing spectacle of her death by suffocation over the next 16 minutes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/business/19scene.html?pagewanted=print

Mariner

and exactly why I am a registered American Independent..ultra conservative...I believe that life is the most precious gift..this is where I and GW and his brother in Fla part...sure I like my money too...but it does not replace life...I would be a hypocrit to have served in the military to fight for freedom..then say....hey my money is more important then ones life... :usa:

 

[dilloduck]

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.

Are you arguing for free health care for everyone no matter thier condition or the cost of such treatment?

 

[archangel]

Are you arguing for free health care for everyone no matter thier condition or the cost of such treatment?

it were you or yours and you and yours were broke..should you be put to death just because you and yours could not afford it...very simple!IMO could be wrong...but I will die fighting for the underdog...this is true conservativism...IMO!

 

[dilloduck]

it were you or yours and you and yours were broke..should you be put to death just because you and yours could not afford it...very simple!IMO could be wrong...but I will die fighting for the underdog...this is true conservativism...IMO!

I understand that and I was trying to carry the discussion to the next logical question.

 

[archangel]

I understand that and I was trying to carry the discussion to the next logical question.

I thought so,but not sure...now I am!...thanks

 

[Mariner]

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.

 

[archangel]

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.

and the real problem...as to the financial burden... lies in the rape and pillage of SSA and giving carte blanche medical care to those who cross the border illegally and drain the system...ie:Medicaid...draws from the SSA and Medicare system...which was supposed to be for those who paid in and would like to collect on this premium without illegal rape of the intended end use!

Just one mans opinion mind ya!

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Look at margaret sanger, the founder of planned parenthood.

http://blackgenocide.org/sanger.html

The Truth About Margaret Sanger---

(This article first appeared in the January 20, 1992 edition of Citizen magazine)

How Planned Parenthood Duped America

At a March 1925 international birth control gathering in New York City, a speaker warned of the menace posed by the "black" and "yellow" peril. The man was not a Nazi or Klansman; he was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member of Margaret Sanger's American Birth Control League (ABCL), which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood.

Sanger's other colleagues included avowed and sophisticated racists. One, Lothrop Stoddard, was a Harvard graduate and the author of The Rising Tide of Color against White Supremacy. Stoddard was something of a Nazi enthusiast who described the eugenic practices of the Third Reich as "scientific" and "humanitarian." And Dr. Harry Laughlin, another Sanger associate and board member for her group, spoke of purifying America's human "breeding stock" and purging America's "bad strains." These "strains" included the "shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of antisocial whites of the South."

Not to be outdone by her followers, Margaret Sanger spoke of sterilizing those she designated as "unfit," a plan she said would be the "salvation of American civilization.: And she also spike of those who were "irresponsible and reckless," among whom she included those " whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers." She further contended that "there is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped." That many Americans of African origin constituted a segment of Sanger considered "unfit" cannot be easily refuted.

While Planned Parenthood's current apologists try to place some distance between the eugenics and birth control movements, history definitively says otherwise. The eugenic theme figured prominently in the Birth Control Review, which Sanger founded in 1917. She published such articles as "Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics" (June 1920), "The Eugenic Conscience" (February 1921), "The purpose of Eugenics" (December 1924), "Birth Control and Positive Eugenics" (July 1925), "Birth Control: The True Eugenics" (August 1928), and many others.

 

[archangel]

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 oppose abortion for purely asthetic reasons...I am for execution of criminals who deserve it...and am against euthanasia...there are many drugs that could be used to lessen pain!(The problem with this is the FDA and lobbist intervention)