Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Where is the Mainstream Media in the Samuel Golubchuk Futile Care Case?

The mainstream media is obsessed with "choice:" Abortion? Choice! Assisted suicide? Choice! Removing feeding tubes? Choice! Futile Care Theory? That sound you hear is the crickets chirping. Indeed, the De Moines Register has already editorialized in favor of futile care, saying the doctors should decide.

What is going on here? As I keep saying to anyone who will listen, it isn't about "choice." It is about putting certain people out of our collective misery. If "choice" gets us there, great. If not, we will impose the duty to die, first through futile care theory--which is just beginning now--and then later through more explicitly terminating actions as occurs already in the Netherlands with its "termination without request or consent" permissiveness toward non voluntary euthanasia.

The current skirmish in this struggle is happeing in Canada where doctors are presuming the right to terminate Mr. Golubchuk's life support, and have the temerity to claim that they have the right to decide when the burden of treatment outweighs the benefit of being alive. That led to litigation, and a crucial ruling due at any time.

Because of the "quality of life" mindset that permeates much of the media, the only media to cover this case with the level of intensity it deserves (from what I have seen) has been the Jewish press because Mr. Golubchuk is Orthodox. Jonathan Rosenblum, a pundit, gets it in this piece, "In Canada, the Schiavo Case With an Outrageous Twist:"

The claim of absolute physician discretion to withdraw life-support advanced by the Canadian doctors would spell the end of any patient autonomy over end-of-life decisions. So-called living wills, which are recognized in many American states, and which allow a person to specify in advance who should make such decisions in the event of their incapacity, would be rendered nugatory...

Just as Nazism gave anti-Semitism a bad name, so too did it discredit Social Darwinism. But just as anti-Semitism has reappeared, so has the assault on the concept of the sanctity of life. That assault is not limited to Princeton ethicist Peter Singer's defense of infanticide, euthanasia and bestiality on explicitly Darwinian grounds.

Global warming activists speak of the duty not to reproduce, and view human beings as the enemy of nature's order. So much for the view of man as the crown of creation. In place of the sanctity of life, we now speak of the "quality of life"--a term that explicitly assumes that some lives are worth more than others.

There is even talk of the "duty to die" and clear the way for higher-quality lives, which is why the American Association of People with Disabilities has been actively involved in so many cases dealing with the doctors' right to terminate medical care. The rage for medical rationing in Canada, of which the Golubchuk case is but one example, derives from a desire not to waste resources on low-quality lives.

I disagree with Rosenblum's final comment about the relevance of the judge being Jewish and I don't think Darwinism leads necessarily to futile care theory, although the eugenics connection is apt. But read the whole piece. He has definitely connected some important dots.

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7 Comments:

At February 12, 2008 , Blogger K-Man said...

Wesley, the difficulty here is that the arguments the other side uses are seductive or strike a chord with many people. All it takes is, for example, family resources taken for elder care, as in this Village Voice article excerpt:

"If you're 'unlucky' like Penny Banker-Mertz, a tax preparer in Bay City, Texas, your parents will live long enough to eat up their assets with expensive health care. The money Banker-Mertz planned to use for her son's tuition is now going to pay for an assisted-living facility for her late husband's mother. 'As my son so credely put it,' she says, ' "Does Grandma know she has to be dead for me to go to college?" ' "

(Francine Russo, "Sorry, kids: Mom and dad have glimpsed your future, and it's not exactly bright", The Village Voice, 21 December 2004, available online.)

This woman's son probably faces a future of either no chance of going to university or a much larger burden of student loans if he does attend. How is he likely to feel in the future about societal and medical resources spent on the elderly and disabled? And I should add that I believe the college funds should have been sacrosanct, but this family is undoubtedly up against a wall. Medicare and Medicaid typically do not pay anything for assisted living.

The son's attitude is far more common amoung younger people than most older people realize. I am in my mid-40s and taking care of my disabled mother full-time. I left work in 2006 to take care of her and my beloved stepfather (he passed away a few months ago). Mom was just diagnosed with breast cancer and will require surgery and daily radiation therapy for several weeks, which delays my desire to return to work part-time to pay the bills. I should note that I gave up a job I enjoyed that I had had for 10 years, sacrificing an almost certain promotion and my future retirement plans when I did so. But my mother and stepfather come first.

Not so with my brother, who is several years younger than me (mid-30s). He couldn't understand why I left work and said, "Why don't you just put Mom in a nursing home?" He and many younger people think it's as simple as taking Mom or Grandma to the nursing home, pushing them out the car door, and moving on. He didn't get it until I explained to him that Mom was not diagnosed as needing skilled nursing care, so that the only facility likely to accept her was the assisted-living variety. And if I hadn't left work, he and I would be trying to figure out how to pay $4,000 a month for her care. Then he got it. I think.

People about my age and older have almost invariably complimented me for caring for the two. People about my brother's age and younger who are aware of my situation didn't understand why I didn't just put them in a home and move on with my life.

The upshot is that youth have been far more indoctrinated with the notions that some lives are not worth spending resources on. They will be all for futile care theory, especially if their family has been hit with care expenses, and they are our future doctors and nurses. I'm worried.

And I'm sorry about yet another long post, Wesley.

 
At February 12, 2008 , Blogger Wesley J. Smith said...

K-MAN:Good for you for loving your mother. It is amazing to me how people like you are castigated by those who consider themselves more enlightened. I write in Forced Exit and Culture of Death about people who have done what you are doing only to be treated angrily by the patients' doctors and their other family members.

Perhaps the reason is that actions such as yours pierce their hearts because they know you are acting the most humanly.

Don't worry about the length. You have a lot to say.

 
At February 12, 2008 , Blogger Mort Corey said...

As the call for government run healthcare (since it's a "right") increases, this is the result we can look forward to in the US as well. The first foray into socialized medicine, medicare, will be the first battleground....and it'll be coming soon. I wonder if the issue with Mr Golubchuk would even exist if there were no third party paying the bill?

As an aside, the story of the brat wanting grandma to croak so he could go to college is disgusting. Now college is a "right"? Sheeze, I'm beginning to think self reliance is a lost cause.

Mort

 
At February 12, 2008 , Blogger T E Fine said...

I went to a community college for my AA, got my degree in three years and paid out of pocket because the classes were cheap. Went to U of Houston, transfered my credits, took out student loans. Because I was working on my Master's as well (up until Daddy got colon cancer) I took out a few more loans - got a good education and only owe about 30,000, which is WAY less than some of my peers are taking out. Live at home to help Ma care for Daddy, don't have too many expenses, have a life outside this house and have my folks with me.

K-Man - I love you. You're the kind of person I can respect and admire because you were willing to be dutiful to your family.

P.S. - I left school to take care of Daddy and Ma when I was 28. So not all of us kiddies think you're doing something crazy, and I wouldn't want to stick my folks in a home, either.

 
At February 13, 2008 , Blogger Laura(southernxyl) said...

This struck me. Without reading the article I can't say if it had a sardonic tone, which would have made it not quite so awful.

"If you're 'unlucky' like Penny Banker-Mertz, a tax preparer in Bay City, Texas, your parents will live long enough to eat up their assets with expensive health care. The money Banker-Mertz planned to use for her son's tuition..."

Stop right there. The money is the PARENTS' assets. Where does anybody get off planning to "use" somebody else's money? The parents could blow it all on a banana plantation and it would not be any of their offpspring's business.

As my mother has said in a different context, "If this is what having money does to you, God, keep me poor."

 
At February 14, 2008 , Blogger K-Man said...

The story context suggests to me that the money is Banker-Mertz's savings, not those of the mother-in-law who is in an assisted-living facility. The MIL's assets are gone.

I have mixed feelings about this story and the son's snotty attitude, but we don't know how old the son was when this was written. Teens often don't have a good sense of empathy.

But as I said, money that his parents saved for his tuition should have been sacrosanct as far as possible. I know of a situation in which a philandering father took family savings for his teen daughter's university tuition to spend on his new lover and their living expenses after leaving his wife (the girl's mother). That just seems wrong. Then he told the daughter it was "none of her business" and "she would understand when she gets older". She understood all too well. Last I heard some years back, the mother was pushing in divorce court for the father to restore the money, but I don't know the outcome.

 
At April 23, 2008 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

wasn't surprised when I read about a families fight with Grace Hospital to keep their father alive. They are too quick to 'pull the plug'. It nearly happened to me! I nearly died in ICU at Grace Hospital after I had been ignored for three days on the 3rd floor there after I was admitted for severe pneumonia - the nurses totally ignored me when I said I could not breath. I had pneumonia with complications. They refused to turn up my oxygen and stopped completely coming when I rang the emergency bell. By the way, I am only 51 yrs of age.

They had even recommended I be put on palliative care and left to die! Fortunately, a doctor happened to visit the man next to me one day and when he heard me struggling to breath the doctor had me sent to ICU immediately! I nearly died (A nurse told me) shortly after arriving in ICU. I was very fortunate – thank God. Fortunately the doctors gave me medicine when I was sent to HSC to see a specialist --and I've recovered nicely!

I have purchased a med-bracelet – guess what’s on it? If I am ever incapacitated DO NOT SEND ME TO GRACE HOSPITAL! It’s been two years now since that terrifying experience and I’m just glad to be alive

…I learned from a hospital employee of a different hospital where I was taken (Fortunately) that the ‘employees at the Grace had ‘recommended’ I be put on palliative’ care and left to die with no medical assistance in the form of drugs that could save my life. I am extremely fortunate to have been transferred from The Grace Hospital before I succumbed. I am stable now 2 yrs later and living quite well and healthy!

But I wonder how many have died needlessly in Grace Hospital in Winnipeg Manitoba?

 

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