British Medical Association Has Gone Neutral On Assisted Suicide
A major medical association has gone on record as being indifferent to whether the laws of its country are changed to permit doctors to hasten the deaths of patients--in complete violation of Hippocratic values. This is a sign of how raw ideology has come to distort empirical thinking.
Consider this: In the UK, the government and the General Medical Council have told Leslie Burke, who has a degenerative neurological disease, that it is not up to him whether he gets food and water if he loses the ability to swallow. But if the UK legalizes Burke's access to assisted suicide because he grows despondent that he might be dehydrated to death--well, the BMA just shrugs its shoulders. AND, the UK is only a short Channel boat ride away from the Netherlands where eugenic infanticide has now entered the country's pediatric wards. What shameful exercise in non leadership!


1 Comments:
For more detailed analyses of these issues, including the arguments you yearn for, please refer to my many articles and books. They are available at or through my WEB site.
I call the BMA decision ideological because the decision to push for neutrality, on the way toward supporting legalization of assisted suicide, wasn't forced by new medical information, empirical analysis, or unique medical needs. After all, palliative care and treatment of the dying has never been better. Assisted suicide is primarily being pushed in medical societies as well as society based on an ideological belief in radical personal autonomy, which supposedly includes the right to "control the time and manner of one's own death."
I would contrast this activism with the drive to legalize medical marijuana, in which proponents marshall and present much evidence about how marijuana palliates certain conditions, such as easing nausea during chemotherapy.
As to thuggery: Violence and intimidation in support of a cause is thuggery. I calls them as I sees them. Thanks for your continued interest in this Blog.
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