Bioethicist Jacob Appel can be relied on to promote the most radical bioethics agendas, assisted suicide for the mentally ill, fetal farming, you name it. And now he has argued that if Montana affirms a constitutional right to assisted suicide in Montana, the state has a duty to make sure that doctors are willing to do the deed. Why? Doctors have a monopoly on a limited commodity–the practice of medicine–and hence they should be able to be forced to participate in the taking of patients’ lives in assisted suicide. From his column:
However, it [medical license and professional autonomy] belies any claim that doctors should have the same right to choose their customers as barbers or babysitters. Much as the government has been willing to impose duties on radio stations (eg. indecency codes, equal time rules) that would be impermissible if applied to newspapers, Montana might reasonably consider requiring physicians, in return for the privilege of a medical license, to prescribe medication to the dying without regard to the patient’s intent.
This is taking the duty to die and transforming it into a duty to kill. And it reflects a profound misunderstanding of the government’s role. The government is not a guarantor that, for example, anyone will read this blog–which is a classic example of a citizen exercising his First Amendment right to free speech. The government, absent a compelling interest, just can’t prevent me from writing. Similarly, if the Montana Supreme Court goes the wrong way, Montana law won’t be able to prevent physicians from engaging in assisted suicide. But that doesn’t mean it should be able to compel them help kill.
The culture of death, however, brooks no dissent. Appel continues:
The right to die is not an abstract principle. This right — or its absence — has a profound effect on the fundamental welfare of nearly every individual and family in the nation during the most vulnerable moments of their lives. If the Montana Supreme Court guarantees citizens the right to aid in dying, and I am both hopeful and confident that the court will do so, then it is also incumbent upon the justices to ensure a mechanism by which patients can exercise their rights. To do otherwise — to offer a theoretical right to die that cannot be meaningfully exercised — will be both a hollow gesture and a cruel taunt to the terminally ill.
No, it is to support their intrinsic human dignity and the Hippocratic “do no harm” values of medicine. And under that theory, I should be able to have the government force everyone in the country to read this blog.
Don’t think it can’t happen here. Medicine is being quickly transformed into an order-taking technocracy. Victoria, Australia law requires doctors to perform abortions on request or refer to a doctor who will. Assisted suicide legislators in California tried to pass a law that would have required doctors to sedate and dehydrate terminally ill patients on demand.
Appel’s advocacy is a glimpse of a possible future in which any physician seeking to adhere to traditional Hippocratic values will be kicked out of medicine.
September 3rd, 2009 | 1:08 pm
Dear Mr. Smith,
Thank you for highlighting Mr. Appel’s important opinion piece. His argument reveals several important features of the left’s bioethics. They begin with a “right to die,” which becomes a “duty to die,” and then as you say, a “duty to kill.” They are willing to use coercive methods to force physicians to violate the traditional ethics of the medical profession and deliberately kill patients. You will also note that Mr. Appel wants physicians to “prescribe medication for the dying without regard to the patient’s intent.” I think he means prescribe a potentially lethal amount of medication even to a patient who has expressed the intention of using it to kill himself. However, lethal ministration to the dying “without regard to the patient’s intent” is also indicative of the moral and ethical slide that has occurred in the Netherlands, where it is well documented that physicians have killed thousands of patients (including children) without even discussing euthanasia with those patients (or with both parents).
The sad truth about the disaster that will befall us if socialized medicine is enacted in the United States, is that it has all been tried elsewhere, and it has all happened before.
September 3rd, 2009 | 2:52 pm
Just as a heads up, with all the recent hub-bub surrounding the healthcare “reform” debate, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod’s World Relief and Human Care decided to put together a special section of our web site about the debate. Our site was developed to help our readers engage in the debate and find useful information about the areas of moral concern (abortion, end of life care, and ethics) that Christians can—and should– monitor. We tried to create a continually-updated repository of information that is free from political rhetoric and only focuses on those specifically moral areas where the church is called to give leadership —according to the Lutheran doctrine of the 2 kingdoms. We also used it as an opportunity to allow Rev. Matt Harrison to do some catechizing on the role of the church in the public square and included a quick video of him doing this. http://www.lcms.org/worldrelief
September 3rd, 2009 | 3:58 pm
I got into a similar argument with a professor in law school. He took the position that Roe v Wade mandated that the government pay for abortions or the right becomes meaningless. This type of argument ignores that Roe was predicated on the “right of privacy”. That is there is no constitutionally protected right to have an abortion. Roe held that the right of privacy precluded the government from interfering in the decision to abort, at least until the third trimester. Similarly, the assisted suicide argument is that the government can not legitimately interfere with this decision. There is nothing requiring the government to see that your decision is carried out.
September 3rd, 2009 | 3:58 pm
I suspect Mr. Appel’s real decision driver is abortion-related. If there is a “right to die” which is interpreted as meaning that doctors may but do not have to assist in that right, then it seems that a similar freedom must be granted to doctors and pharmacists in abortion and contraception matters. Since the left is making the stand that there can be absolutely no conscience provision for health-care workers where abortion or contraception is involved, they can’t very well allow the precedent that there is such a right to follow one’s conscience in other matters, because it then forces them to attempt to explain why abortion is so special, and they don’t want to do that. They want to pretend that it’s just a perfectly normal and everyday issue.
September 3rd, 2009 | 10:25 pm
Where do I get in line for the government to pay me for my expensive violin? Isn’t this necessary for my right to pursuit of happiness?
September 7th, 2009 | 1:22 pm
[...] KILLY MacKILL– “Right to Die” Means a Physician Duty to Kill?; and “Government health-care [...]
September 8th, 2009 | 10:26 am
Right to die?
Those advocating this right can be assured that it is the only ‘right’ they can count on.
But, of course, what they mean is: right to be killed. And for that, as you point out, they need a killer.
September 8th, 2009 | 1:22 pm
The Research Maven Librarina strikes again!
“Is There a Right to Health Care”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203517304574306170677645070.html#
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact