"Do Not Stop Life-Sustaining Treatment:" demands Andrea Clark Attorney

I have been contacted by Jerri Ward, the attorney for Andrea Clark's family. She has informed me that a new physician has agreed to treat Clark and that the doctor and the family want her life-sustaining treatment to continue while they look for another hospital to provide care under the auspices of the new physician. Ward has written a letter to St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston, Texas, directing, on behalf of the family, that Clark's life-sustaining treatment be continued.

In any event, this is an abridged version of that letter. I have omitted an allegation about Clark's care that I didn't feel I should publicize since I only know about it as it is set forth in this letter. I have also excised the names of the doctors for obvious reasons:

"Re: Andrea Clark

Dear Sirs and Madam,

As you know, I represent Andrea Clark and her family. On behalf of the family and Andrea, I have been authorized to convey treatment decisions made by the family with regard to her care. Because Andrea is heavily sedated and is limited in her ability to communicate treatment decisions to her physicians and the hospital, the family is empowered under law to make such decisions on her behalf. The family is united in its decision that life-sustaining treatments should NOT be withdrawn or withheld from Andrea Clark pending transfer to another physician or facility.

On behalf of Andrea, the family, acting as a unit, has made the following treatment decisions:

1. Life-sustaining treatment should continue pending transfer as referenced above.

2. Dr. [name #1] should, in the exercise of reasonable care, prepare an interim summary of his findings and diagnoses to enable other physicians to have sufficient information in order to make a decision as to whether or not to take on the care of Andrea. It is unconscionable to this family that Andrea's primary attending physician has made himself unavailable to the patient during this trying time--even though he has delegated care to Dr. [Name #2].

3. It is the family's position that Andrea is not a "futile case". Under the provisions and privacy regulations of HIPAA, the family is entitled to have erroneous information in Andrea's medical chart corrected. Because, it is at least one physician's opinion that a diagnosis of futility and decision that life-sustaining treatments are inappropriate, the family requests, pursuant to HIPAA, that the medical chart be corrected and that the discontinuation of life-sustaining treatments on the basis of inappropriateness not be entered into her chart. The decision that Andrea's case is "futile" has placed seemingly insurmountable obstacles to transferring Andrea's care to other providers. It is repugnant to notions of justice and fairness that Andrea's life be threatened because you have unilaterally determined a disputable outcome that impedes her chances of finding another health provider.

4. The family has decided that the regimen of pain medication be reassessed and the dosage appropriately decreased so that a proper assessment of Andrea's condition can be made by physicians other than the ones to whom this letter is directed.

5. The family withdraws consent and authorization from the attending physicians and the hospital to discuss with, disclose to or elicit opinions from Dr. [Name #3] regarding protected health information concerning Andrea Clark. It is the family's opinion that Dr. [3's] actions and opinions in this matter are informed solely by his personal philosophies regarding "futile care theories" and that he has not taken an objective approach in this matter. Furthermore, it is the family understands that Dr. [3] is an ob-gyn, and not a cardiologist. Thus, the family questions Dr. 3's seemingly active role in affirming treatment decisions of Andrea's treating physicians.

Moreover, it is the family's opinion that Lanore Dixon and Charles Clark were treated with rudeness, insensitivity and disdain during an ethics committee meeting which focused on pain management for Andrea. The family felt that its positions were ignored and ridiculed by Dr. 3. Moreover, the report Dr. 3 wrote as a result of that particular ethics committee meeting was rife with misstatements of the facts. For instance, Dr. 3 wrote: "...The specific question asked concerning that belief is when, if ever, her sister told her that she wanted to exist in a state of pain and suffering to achieve that goal. That question was never answered.' Lanore Dixon strongly disputes this and asserts that she did; indeed, state 'that Andrea did tell me that she wanted all measures to be taken to save her life unless she was brain dead.'

It is the family's decision and desire that Dr. 3 recuse himself from consideration of this case and any decision regarding Andrea's care. The family will be exploring its recourse under the law and under the enforcement mechanisms of HIPAA to this end.

6. The family requests that the ethics committee be convened on a day and time convenient for the family, their attorney and their medical experts to discuss Andrea's care.

7. The family insists that Dr. 3, or any other hospital staff member desist from any attempts to unduly or unreasonably persuade, intimidate or bully any potential treating physician into accepting Dr. 3's opinion that life-sustaining treatments should be withdrawn. The family, again, withdraws any consent or authorization from the parties in this matter for Dr. 3 to receive or discuss protected health information regarding Andrea Clark

8. The family insists that it be made privy to any conversations between representatives or case managers and attending physicians or hospital staff and Andrea Clark's insurer regarding matters of coverage. The family is entitled to know if the insurer is placing pressure on the hospital based on its assessments regarding length of stay or any other measure impacting the insurer's willingness to pay.

...

On behalf of the family, I am putting you on notice that the family intends to file pleadings with the appropriate court in order to restrain you from withdrawing life-sustaining treatments. There are numerous questions of fact that should not be solely determined by you with regard to Andrea's treatment. There are fact issues with regard to whether or not the physicians and the hospital have acted with reasonable care in deciding that life-sustaining treatment should be withdrawn. Should you act to withdraw life-sustaining treatment prior to review by an appropriate Court, the family intends file complaints with the appropriate regulatory and licensure entities and to take any available legal action permitted under the law and in equity.

It is the family's opinion that the attending physician and ethics committee have overreached in this case. It should not be your decision as to whether or not Andrea's life is worth living. The family demands that life-sustaining treatments be continued in light of the fact that the family intends to take this matter up with the Court. [My emphasis.]

Should you have any questions, please contact me. Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

Very truly yours,

Jerri Lynn Ward"

Games Being Played by St. Luke's?

Andrea Clark's sister was assured (she says) by St. Luke's that Andrea would be maintained through Tuesday. But Jerri Ward, the attorney for the family, just e-mailed me: "I have not been able to get St. Luke's to agree on the record that care will be continued after the weekend. It probably will, but that's not been conveyed to me either in writing or orally."

I will continue to update as more information comes in.

Medical Futility Like Pornography: It's Whatever We Say It Is

Andrea Clark's becoming the "unwanted patient" began with Houston hospitals creating a collaborative policy on medical futility back in the 1990s. That led to the Texas law which sought (impotently, in my view) to limit the damage that can be caused by medical futility.

Here is a very telling part of the article describing the policy in the August 21, 1996, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), page 571 ("A Multi-institutional Collaborative Policy on Medical Futility"). After noting that it is difficult to define medical futility or cases in which continued life-sustaining treatment would be "inappropriate," the authors, write:

"We concluded that we need to treat futility as courts treat pornography, acknowledging that while it cannot be defined, we certainly know it when we see it. This approach to value laden, context dependent judgment has recently been eloquently defended."

In other words, it is what we say it is. Sweet.

Andrea Clark's Sister Wants You to Know

I heard from Lanore Dixon, Andrea Clark's sister. Here is what I was told. She asked me to pass it on:

"St. Luke's has agreed not to pull Andrea's life support at least until Tuesday. On Tuesday, a committee of doctors from St. Luke's will meet to discuss how to proceed with Andrea's case. Andrea's new doctor--a doctor who shares our values about the sacredness of life--will take over her care on Tuesday and will fight for her right to live. Let us all hope and pray that the committee meeting on Tuesday is chaired by doctors who have a reverence for life and not a former abortionist like the St. Luke's ethics committee chair."

Apparently the Illinois facility was a nursing home and was not equipped to provide Andrea with proper care. So St. Luke's appropriately stopped the transfer.

The Unwanted Patient

The deal to permit Andrea Clark to receive treatment in Illinois is off. The hospital there wasn't a hospital, it was a nursing home, and so St. Luke's cancelled the transfer. I am told, but don't know, that this was because of a miscommunication about the seriousness of her illness.

But this is the bottom line: A catastrophically ill woman and her family want her life sustained and no hospital in the country appears willing to permit her have this care. Such is the place that the bioethics movement has taken the country.

P.S. I have been spelling Andrea's last name incorrectly. It is Clark. No e at the end.

Euthanasia in the Netherlands--Going Up

The numbers of euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands continue to increase, and those are just those reported. Several studies have shown that about half of all euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands are not reported, even though it is legal there for doctors to euthanize patients who ask for it. Not reporting violates the law, but of course, we are talking the Netherlands here, so nothing is ever done about it.

Andrea Clark Case Needs More Attention

The denouement of the Andrea Clark case--a desperately ill woman forced to move 1000 miles just to receive the care she wants to stay alive--has been insufficiently covered by Texas media, although this is pretty good story. The people of Texas have a big problem with their futile care law, and the media need to begin covering it in earnest.

Of course, I have no doubt that it will eventually be spun to make those who want to protect people like Andrea Clark to be interloping vitalists who want people to be tethered to machines forever, with the resulting conclusion that proper medical decision making should be left to the experts. This approach will simply forget that the earlier spin on end of life issues was that no one has the right to gainsay intimate family decision making about life supporting care. Such breathtaking hypocrisy has actually already begun, most notably a few years ago in an editorial in the Des Moines Register during a brief futile care dust up in Iowa.

We'll see how this issue unfolds. Meanwhile, it is time for federal hearings on the nature and scope of the medical futility problem and some federal and state remedies to prevent the values of bioethics from being imposed on the lives of the sick and disabled.

The issue of medical futility is too important to be decided by the few behind closed doors. This entire subject needs to be aired in public democratic debate.

Andrea Clark to Illinois

I have just been advised that Andrea Clark's family has accepted the offer to move her to Illinois. It is ridiculous that Clarke has to be moved at all, but at least she will get the treatment she wants and needs to sustain her life. Under the Texas statute, St. Luke's is not responsible for paying for the transportation of a transfer after a futility determination, but they will be paying in this case. I am convinced that this would not have happened but for the heat people put on St. Luke's Hospital. Again, it is wrong that a sick woman has to be moved 1000 miles to receive life-sustaining care that she and her family want, but at least she will receive it. Good job to everyone who put pressure on St. Luke's.

Now, Texas Legislature: Change the law.

James Kelly is an Important Voice in the Cloning Debate

James Kelly is a man with a spinal cord injury who has taught himself almost all there is to know about stem cell science. He began as a supporter of ESCR and therapeutic cloning, but has since changed his mind.

In this piece he describes a chilling episode in which he claims he was literally muzzled before he could tell Christopher Reeve, whom he had just debated, about adult stem cell successes for spinal cord patients. I have asked him if this really happened, and he assures me it did. Here is that paragraph.

"Later that year I debated the practicality of cloning with Reeve at the New York Academy of Sciences. At Reeve's request I tried to tell him of an adult bone marrow clinical trial for ALS and SCI in Turin, Italy. But as I began to speak I was physically muzzled from behind by the scientific moderator of the debate. While I struggled to pull his hands from my mouth, fifty reporters looked on in stunned silence and Reeve's handlers quickly wheeled him from the room."

There is much in this column worth pondering and considering. The full article can be accessed here.

Andrea Clarke and Futile Care Theory in NRO

The latest twist in the Andrea Clarke futile care case is the hospital's pressure. From my article today on NRO:

"Illustrating the level of hardball some hospitals play against patients and families, the Clarke family's lawyer Jerri Ward told me that St. Luke's agreed to pay the $14,806 transportation costs to transfer Clarke to a hospital in Illinois — more than 1,000 miles away — if the decision to transfer is made on Thursday (4/27). If the family doesn't decide until Friday, the hospital will pay only one-half of the cost of transportation. Thereafter, it would pay nothing."

We need to start paying much more attention to the threat of Futile Care Theory, which undermines patient autonomy and the equal moral worth of all human lives.

"We Never Say No" to Assisted Suicide

I have opined on the proposed chain of suicide clinics in Switzerland. This column demonstrates that the idea of death on demand is not restricted to the more radical members of the euthanasia movement but finds resonance among some bioethicists and self-described "free thinking" humanists. Check it out.

Spain to Grant Great Apes "Human Rights?"

Deutsche Presse-Agentur is reporting that the Spanish ruling party is considering "a parliamentary initiative to grant rights to great apes on the basis of their resemblance to humans...The socialists want to prohibit the 'enslaving' of gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and bonobos."

This is part of the Great Ape Project, a world-wide animal rights initiative that hopes to grant personhood to great apes (which would lead eventually to other animals being similarly recognized).

Here is a short report on the same story.

Specifics on Texas Statute Imposing Futile Care Theory

For listeners to Ron Thulin, (KAHL, San Antonio, Texas) and anyone else interested in the law permitting Andrea Clarke to be removed forcibly from wanted life-sustaining treatment: The statute permitting Texas hospital ethics committees to impose Futile Care Theory is available at this link . Scroll down to 166.046(e), which provides in part:"The physician and the health care facility are not obligated to provide life-sustaining treatment after the 10th day after the written decision required under Subsection (b) is provided to the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient unless ordered to do so under Subsection (g)." Subsection g merely permits a time extension if another facility is likely to allow admission.

This law needs to be changed!

Organ Buying: Survival of the Richest

Organ purchasing is on the rise around the world, either from the destitute who sell their kidneys to, say, pay for a child's surgery, or from China, which reportedly executes prisoners and sells their organs to the highest bidders. Organ buying is an odious practice that continues the ongoing international increase in the commoditization of some human lives.

My wife, Debra J. Saunders, who writes a syndicated political column for the San Francisco Chronicle, firmly rejects the idea so prevalent when this issue is raised: "Who are we to judge?" Her column "American Vampire," criticizes the terminal nonjudgmentalism (my term) that allows people and many in society to excuse, justify, and even preen about using others as so many organ farms. And she makes a key point about using people as a means to an end, to wit: "When utilitarianism becomes a substitute for right and wrong, the end result is a lot more wrong."

Medical Futility On the March

For years I have been warning that bioethicists are getting their ducks in a row to permit them to refuse wanted life sustaining treatment that is removed because it keeps the patient alive, not because it doesn't provide medical benefit. These are value judgments, not medical determinations.

And now they are beginning to come. I commented about a futile care case in Michigan a few days ago, and here's another. I don't know enough about the facts of this case to opine completely, but this sure seems to be a futile care case in action. St. Luke's Hospital in Houston is going to unilaterally remove a woman from life support, even though her family wants her to continue to receive care. (It is as if Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers wanted Terri's care continued but the hospital said no.)

Note that the treatment is apparently being removed because it works, not because it doesn't--which means, in effect, that the hospital ethics committee has declared the patient's life to be futile.

Texas has a terrible law that permits an unelected, self-appointed, anonymous ethics committee to forcibly remove care. Once that happens, the patient has 10 days to find another hospital. These are closed proceedings. I am unaware of any records kept of the evidence presented at the hearings or the deliberations.

These are life and death decisions and it seems to me that there may be a significant constitutional issue here of immense importance. A law permits private decision-making that will result in death without even the right to a public hearing, to cross examine witnesses, or a formal appeal. Someday, someone is going to attack this statute and its constitutional implementation frontally in federal court. I have already urged some attorneys in private that they do just that. Let us hope that fairness and simple justice prevail.

Ants and People are Equal

Are we human beings or "eco-beings?" Not sure exactly what the latter term means, but as used by Albert J. Bergesen, professor of sociology at the University of Arizona in the San Francisco Chronicle, it appears to mean that we are equal with--meaning no better than--rocks, spiders, fungi, trees, and plankton. This is a new strain of radical environmentalism that seems to go far beyond positing a human duty to protect the environment, as Earth Day originally promoted, to saying we are nothing more than one part of nature with, as others have written, no greater claim to existence or use of resources, than any other life form.

This is to mutate the concept of egalitarianism into an extreme quasi-earth religion mysticism. Bergesen writes: "The categorical location of consciousness as human, or animal, and perhaps even plant or rock, river or mountain, may be merely an accident of Gaian birth." (Gaia is the theory that Earth is a living being. Many in the deep ecology movement who support this view humanity as vermin parasites on Gaia.)

Bergesen further states that "tying moral thought to humanism...seems increasingly untenable, for it is a mystification of our fundamental eco-existence as an equal among other living things...We must realize that, as part of nature, we are eco-beings first, and human beings second." (My emphasis.)

What would that mean in practical terms? In this article, Bergesen doesn't say. But if fungi and ants are equal to people, it could mean that we have to substantially sacrifice human welfare to ensure their equal treatment as part of respecting their supposedly intrinsic equal moral worth.

This idea, which is now being expressed in hard Darwinian terms by some and in neo-mystical terms by others, as here with Bergesen, seems to go even beyond the idea of humans and animals being moral equals. We now have some asserting, to paraphrase PETA's Ingrid Newkirk: "A rat, is a pig, is a beetle, is the Potomac River, is a boy."

Futile Care Theory in the News

This case looks like a Futile Care Theory case. The headline, as usual, calls it a "right to die" matter. But it appears to really be a right to live. (I never cease to be amazed at the pack mentality of the MSM.) The hospital wanted to cut off an elderly patient's feeding tube and other treatment because she had terrible heart disease and dementia, and would not have a "meaningful" recovery. Perhaps withdrawing most interventions would be the better call, but that is a value judgment, not a medical judgment. The guardian, objected. The hospital tried to impose its view. But the court has stated that whatever happens, the hospital will not have the power to decide.

Good. That decision properly belongs with patient or duly appointed legal decision makers--or, if necessary, the courts. Doctors and bioethicists should not be allowed to impose their moral views on the quality of a patient's life on others by refusing wanted life-sustaining treatment.

Lord Joffe Spills the Beans

Lord Joffe has authored an assisted suicide bill in the UK House of Lords that, he promises, will restrict assisted suicide to the terminally ill. Only, that is not his goal. As he told the Sunday Times (London), "I can assure you that I would prefer that the [new] law did apply to patients who were younger and who were not terminally ill but who were suffering unbearably," adding, "I believe that this bill should initially be limited."

Of course he wants it limited since that is the only chance it has of passing. Once that happened, then he and his allies could go for the wider license that is the ultimate goal of the vast majority of the euthanasia movement.

Southern Poverty Law Center After Animal Rights Terrorists

Morris Dees is something of a hero of mine for his indomitable struggle against white supremacist organizations such as the Aryan Nation. We have met a few times and he strikes me as a humble, earnest man of high integrity and conviction.

Dees' Southern Poverty Law Center is one of the nation's most credible voices on the issue of domestic terrorism. And it has been warning against the animal rights/liberation threat in this regard for some time. The latest Intelligence Report, published by the SPLC is still on the case. This is important stuff worth taking the time to read.

Tom Cruise and Eating Placenta

I am sure Tom Cruise was kidding when he said he would eat his new baby's placenta. I shrugged it off, and firgured the idea was an urban legend. Then, I began to see some items that it is not unheard of. Which got me to thinking: The placenta is a human organ. Wouldn't eating one be a form of cannibalism? Just when you think you have heard of everything...

Suicide Clinics for the Mentally Ill

There is an ongoing pretense in assisted suicide advocacy the euthanasia/assisted suicide is merely a medical matter of "last resort" that is to be reserved only for dying people when nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering. But this planned assisted suicide clinic that will "serve" the mentally ill as well as physically ill in Switzerland, belies the notion. And, it is the logical consequence of accepting euthanasia consciousness. (Read the extended story about Dignitas founder here.)

First, killing is not a medical act, as this Dutch clinic demonstrates. The people involved are not doctors and in Switzerland, doctors are not supposed to engage in assisted suicide in their professional capacities. Second, it isn't about terminal illness. Many clients of the suicide clinics have not been dying. Which is also logical: If personal autonomy rules--as it does in assisted suicide ideology--dying has nothing to do with it. Finally, in the end it is about near death on demand. If you own your own body, which is the bottom line premise of radical individualism, they you have the right to dispose of it when and where you will.

Many advocates are too politic to state this, or actually don't want to go that far and naively believe that "guidelines" will protect against abuse. Yet, the Hemlock Society funded Dr. Phillip Nitschke for years as he attempted to develop his "peaceful pill" suicide concoction. And Nitschke was, at the time, calling for the peaceful pill to be available in supermarkets for anyone who wants it, including "troubled teens."

And people of good will, particularly in the media, just refuse to believe the evidence of this when it is placed before them. I remember being on an NPR radio program once. My debating opponent was Dr. Bert Keizer, a Dutch nursing home doctor and author of Dancing With Mr. D. (If you want to see the coldness of euthanasia in action, read that book!) In any event, I pointed out during our debate that Keizer had admitted to euthanizing a man even before his lung cancer diagnosis was final. The host sputtered angrily: I was an alarmist. Surely, I was attacking Keizer without justification!

But then, Keizer coolly admitted it. The host was speechless. Throughout the rest of the interview, he kept desperately looking for justifications for Keizer's actions. He simply refused to believe the truth that this wasn't just about dying people for whom nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering. (I saw this same media tendency during the Kevorkian reign.)

Because people desperate want to believe that a little killing will be all right. After all, it is only about compassion and choices (the new name of the Hemlock Society), don't you see.

Private Money Still Avoiding ESCR and Cloning

This story details what we have heard before: The private money is voting with their closed checkbooks about the prospects for the near and mid range futures of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. Issues of uncertainty of the technology, patent disputes, the continuing moral controversy, etc., is keeping the private money from investing in massive quantities. If this were half as sure a thing as some ESCR advocates imply, or sometimes state, you would have to beat the private money away with a stick.

On the surface, that is why Big Biotech is spending millions on a propaganda juggernaut to convince state taxpayers to give their hard-earned tax dollars to private companies and their university business partners to do the research. In CA, under Proposition 71, there is supposed to be a payback to the state if the research turns to gold. But get this: It only applies if the grant recipient is a public entity like a university. Money given to the private sector is a pure gift. Talk about pork: Snort! Snort!

But despite states now ponying up billions in funding over the next decade--evan as infrastructures collapse around their ears--we will still hear that the feds need to cough up hundreds of millions more, so much so, that it will be hard to spend it all. Which is puzzling--unless it really isn't just about the money. You see, saying no to federal funding means that the official public policy of the country holds that it is wrong to destroy human life in research, and moreover, to make human life for that purpose. Allowing open funding, would give the moral stamp of approval of the country. Thus, in the end, it seems to me that this dispute is less about the money and more about whose values and ethics ultimately will control society as we move into the biotech century.

Animal Rights and Paralyzed Rats Helped by Adult Stem Cells

This story from Wired remains anecdotal, but it illustrates two important points: First, there is far more going on to help people with degenerative conditions than therapeutic cloning or embryonic stem cells. In this experiment, rats were injected with a hydrogel, similar to that found during gestation around the developing spinal cord, and also implanted bone marrow stem cells. The results were truly encouraging: "Not only did the rats show unprecedented neural regrowth, they also recovered much of the limb function they had lost when the researchers initially injured them."

But just as significantly from the perspective of the advance of science, these kinds of experiments simply could not be done without using animals. Animal rights/liberationists continually assert that it is useless to use animals in medical research since they are not identical genetically to humans. It doesn't matter how often assertion is proved false, they just keep making it.

But these rat experiments show that a potential approach to helping people with chronic, long term paralysis due to spinal cord injury may be doable. Without these rats--which were paralyzed intentionally to test the procedure--we wouldn't have any way of knowing this.

Animal liberationists can pretend that animal research offers little human benefit. They are clearly wrong. With a few exceptions, they don't have the candor to state they want to give up these advances to ensure that animals don't suffer because, in their view, "a rat, is a pig, is a dog, is a dog." We all feel pain, so we are all morally equal.

If we go down the animal rights/liberation road, our suffering will be the primary consequence.

A Reader Makes an Interesting Point About the Media and Cloning

This note from a reader seems right to me: "I have noticed in stories about Hwang's research, the media almost always gets SCNT right. But when it comes to an initiative or funding in the U.S. they always get it wrong and overtly refuse to get it right. It is really curious. Maybe it is because Hwang clearly claimed to have cloned embryos and his papers say exactly that, or maybe it is because when possible votes from Average Joe American are involved, obfuscation is the name of the game."

At Last: Cloning Accurately Depicted

This Bloomberg report about how Harvard and California's Geron Corporation plan to try to accomplish what Woo-suk Hwang lied about doing: human cloning and extraction of embryonic stem cells. No surprise there. But what is refreshing is that the story reports accurately that human cloning creates a human embryo, which, when intended for use in research, is to be destroyed. From the story: "U.S. researchers at Harvard University and in California said they first will create 'cloned' human embryos in the lab by combining women donors' egg cells with DNA provided by other adults. The scientists will then isolate and extract stem cells from the embryos."

See, New York Times: It isn't that hard.

Killing for Organs?

Russian doctors have been arrested for being part of a plot to take patients' organs for sale on the black market. This is one small piece in a larger puzzle involving organ sales and exploitation of poor and sick people around the world. Losing the concept of the intrinsic moral value of human life leads to very dark places.

National Geographic on Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells

This is a good story on the potential benefits of umbilical cord blood stem cells. Check it out.

"Choice" as a One Way Street

This column goes where the entire "Futile Care Theory" (aka medical futility) movement wants to take us. If you don't want to receive life-sustaining treatment, you should have the absolute right to refuse. If you do want it, you may or may not get your way depending on whether the powers that be determine that, 1: your life is worth living, and 2: it is worth spending money on.

Columnist Froma Harrop says that people like Terri Schiavo should not be kept alive, even if that is what is wanted by family and/or advance medical directive, unless the patient or family pays the entire tab. In other words, no public funding to sustain the lives of certain people.

She also states that it would be acceptable to keep elderly people comfortable on the public tab when they are unable to care for themselves. But why? If we can determine that some of us have no business being alive, why not others? Indeed, it might cost more money to care for a debilitated elderly or a quadriplegic disabled person for years and some would denigrate these people as having lives of little value or productivity. Indeed, why waste time removing wanted care? Why not just administer the lethal jab and get it over with quickly? That now happens regularly in the Netherlands, which has trod this road before us.

These attitudes are dangerous precisely because they excuse medical discrimination by a polite name. This is not to say, of course, that we shouldn't worry about resources. We should. But there are many other ways to conserve resources and prioritize expenditures without discarding people.

Here's the nub of the issue: Once we presume the right to judge someone else's moral value and right to continued existence, whether one lives or dies depends on who has the power to decide. And that leads to tyranny against the weak.

They Caught the Grave Robbing Animal Rights Activists

Three UK animal rights terrorists have admitted to robbing a grave to force a farm family to quit raising guinea pigs for science. This despicable act was the culmination of a campaign of intimidation, threats, false accusations, such as of pedophilia, that did finally force the family to stop selling guinea pigs to research centers.

This is the kind of wild extremism that we face in this country from some animal liberationists, particularly regarding the animal testing laboratory, Huntingdon Life Sciences. But if the tactic of "tertiary targeting", which pits terrorists against insurance companies, banks, etc. of Huntingdon, in addition to the company itself, is able to put the company six feet under, TT will spread to other animal laboratories and industries, and from there to other issues beyond animal liberation.

Stopping this madness will require strict law enforcement and rejection of the liberationist ideology that fervently believes that humans and animals are moral equals, while embracing the human obligation to treat animals humanely and with proper care.

A Note About Commenting on Secondhand Smoke

I have heard from some people who have complained that they can't comment here at Secondhand Smoke. That is because to do so, one needs to be a registered user of Blogger. I have checked to see if there is a way around that requirement and have been told that to permit non Blogger users to comment would also mean permitting anonymous posting. I would prefer not to permit that as I have seen where it can lead. Indeed, I have been quite impressed with the general high level of comment, and believe that is partially due to people having to, in some measure, identify themselves. Thus, since it seems clear to me that the status quo helps to promote quality and civil discourse, and reduces my need to police the site, I have decided to maintain matters as they are.

If someone would like to comment but not register with Blogger, I can be e-mailed at the link on the page. I may or may not post the note here, but I will read it. Posted comments from private e-mailers will be anonymous and subject to my editing.

Thanks one and all for visiting Secondhand Smoke.

Updated FORCED EXIT Due Out in Late May

The release of the second update of my book Forced Exit (originally published in 1997 and updated in 2003))has been delayed due to the publisher, Encounter Books, moving from San Francisco to New York. The new edition will be a paper back and readers of the original will find it somewhat streamlined than previous releases. However, it will include a discussion of the Terri Schiavo case, the movie Million Dollar Baby, the continued fall of the Netherlands off of a vertical moral cliff, and medical futility, among other continuing controversies.

The book has been given a new subtitle to reflect the current trends. Instead of "Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope From Euthanasia to Legalized Murder," it will now be, "Forced Exit: Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, and the New 'Duty to Die.'"

More as the release date approaches.

Country's Largest Latino Civil Rights Organization Opposes Assisted Suicide

The national board of LULAC, the nation's largest Latino civil rights organization, has unanimously opposed assisted suicide in general and California's AB 651 in specific. The MSM continue to attempt to portray opposition to assisted suicide as a product of religious conservatism. This has never been true, as almost every one of the world's major medical and nursing associations oppose killing as a medical treatment. But now, the coalition (of which I am a proud part) opposing PAS is more diverse than ever.

As the LULAC press release points out:"[T]he Latino community doesn't want Assisted Suicide. The Disability community does not want Assisted Suicide. The poor and uninsured do not want Assisted Suicide. The majority of us are Democrats and we want our representatives to focus on issues like Health Care, Education, and Immigrant Rights -- not Assisted Suicide."

This is a big story. Will the general media report it?

Belgium Falling Faster than the Netherlands

Belgium only legalized euthanasia a few years ago and it is already catching up with the Netherlands' fall off the vertical moral cliff. One of the ruling parties is calling for permitting euthanasia to minors under 18 and for parents to permit the mercy killing of their children. It took the Dutch some 20 years to get where the Belgiums have in just 2 or 3. Doctors in Flemish areas have also caught up with the Dutch in the rate of infanticide, according to a recent study in the Lancet, about 8% of all infants who die each year.

But that is what happens when you redefine killing from bad to good. The guidelines that were intended to protect the vulnerable come to be seen instead as hurdles standing in the way of the good of death.

He Speaks!

You've read me, now hear me give a speech, which I called "Bioethics: Creating a Disposable Caste?" It was presented in Washington DC at the Discovery Institute Washington DC headquarters on 2/22/06. It is an MP3 format (34.7MB).

A Valuable Reminder That Most Biotech is Not Controversial

This is a wonderful breakthrough in tissue engineering: Scientists took bladder and muscle cells from children with bladder disease. They then rebuilt them into a functioning bladder, which was attached to the children's existing bladders. The result is much improved bladder control without the bad side effects that can happen with current surgical techniques.

The technique might also be applied to people with other forms of bladder disease, such as cancer.

Rooting for Human Extermination

This is what I have been warning against if we reject human exceptionalism, which can lead to an embrace of radical misanthropy. Apparently, Eric R. Pianka, a (deep) ecology professor speaking at a science symposium in Texas predicted in hopeful terms the outbreak of an ebola pandemic that would wipe out almost all of the human population--which he saw as necessary for the health of the earth--and received a standing ovation from the scientists in attendance.

According to Forrest M. Mims III, who edits Citizen Scientist and brought this matter to light, "One of Pianka's earliest points was a condemnation of anthropocentrism, or the idea that humankind occupies a privileged position in the Universe. He told a story about how a neighbor asked him what good the lizards are that he studies. He answered, 'What good are you?' Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, 'We're no better than bacteria!'"

He should speak for himself. But seriously, this is a clear minority view but not necessarily one on the fringe. The speaker, Eric R. Pianka, was named Distinguishged Texas Scientist of 2006 by the Texas Academy of Science.

I worry increasingly that science and misanthropic ideology are beginning to blur, which is not about science, but deeply held ideological scientism. A hearty, "Here, Here," to Mims for exposing this matter and for sounding the alarm.

(Hat tip, Colin.)

Schiavo Still Divides Nation

Both the Schindlers--what a wonderful family--and Michael Schiavo have books out about the death of Terri. If book sales are any indication, the nation remains divided by the case. I have been tracking the Amazon book rankings of both books and they have remained within one hundred of each other for the last week. As I write this, the Schindler's book, A Life That Matters, is ranked 280. Schiavo's book is ranked 215. Yesterday, both were ranked in the low to mid five hundreds.

I know which one I'd read.