Jack Kevorkian, ever the compassionate one, has defended Michael Jackson’s doctor who may be charged with manslaughter in the singer’s death. Why? The doctor just gave Jackson “what he wanted,” e.g. powerful sedatives. From the story:
Assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian defended the embattled doctor of Michael Jackson in an interview Wednesday, saying the pop star “got what he wanted.” In an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, Kevorkian said he believed Dr. Conrad Murray did not act maliciously when sedating Jackson with several drugs. “Murder is defined as malice aforethought,” he said. “Did he have that aforethought? I doubt it.” [Me: Manslaughter does not require malice aforethought.]
Investigators say a mix of the powerful anesthetic propofol and another sedative killed Jackson. Murray has said he administered the drugs to help Jackson sleep. “Maybe Jackson craved these things so much he pestered the doctor until he got it,” Kevorkian said.
Oh, that’s okay, then.
But in fairness to Kevorkian, he is merely taking the ubiquitous “choice” mantra to the next step. Medicine is deprofessionalizing, with the field’s ethics increasingly focused on facilitating patient desires: abortion on demand–and medical associations objecting to conscience clauses that would permit doctors to opt out; assisted suicide on demand now on the horizon–with pressure already beginning to require doctor cooperation; bioethicists and psychiatrists promoting the propriety of cutting off health limbs for patients with Body Identity Integrity Disorder (who obsess on being amputees); a mentally disturbed mother who has 14 IVF children just because she wants to; a 62-year-old giving birth; the teenager who wants breast implants, etc.
Medicine is becoming an order-taking technocracy that not only heals and palliates, but facilitates lifestyle choices (with the notable exception of Futile Care Theory that would permit doctors to refuse to extend the life of patients with a low quality of life). So, as distasteful as Kevorkian is, he increasingly appears to be the herald of a new medical age.
September 4th, 2009 | 2:00 pm
Dear Mr Smith,
Well-described. This is what has happened when physicians were taught that “paternalism” was an evil thing, and when they began to be afraid of being sued because of their decisions.
The essence of a physician’s work is to advise a patient and to make decisions about diagnosis and treatment. Under the aegis of “patient-centered” so-called “bioethics,” physicians are now being encouraged to refrain from giving advice and avoid making decisions.
You are right that this means de-professionalization. Another aspect of this is the loss of professional autonomy, both as individual physicians and as a “corporation” (in the sense of a guild) of physicians, and the assumption of all authority for the non-profession by the State.
September 4th, 2009 | 5:15 pm
I suppose he’d also be supportive the anesthesiologist who testified, in the federal insurance fraud trial of a notorious Manhattan doctor who harmed many and associated with the unsavory, about having been a drug addict himself, once having passed out in the operating room from a self-administered drug overdose while on duty as an anesthesiologist, and being Michael Jackson’s tour doctor, and who, when he moved to Woodstock, rented a house close to his own for Michael Jackson to move to. Nothing like keeping the addict nearby, is there. Thus far that one seems to have escaped more than occasional mention re Jackson’s death. They’re all trash, the whole lot of them. Not that I ever thought much of Michael Jackson or the family he came from, or was suprised that he didn’t live past 50, but still.
September 4th, 2009 | 5:20 pm
Same one seems to have been not unresponsible for the insurance fraud scam, and testified for the government to save himself, and the doc whose office it was, and the other anesthesiologist (no prize either one of them) went to prison; both came out the same trash they were when they went in, of course, but still — this guy is running around loose. What character his ilk has — enough to get Kevorkian’s support.
September 7th, 2009 | 1:16 pm
Wesley J. Smith, the new hero in US policy and a new Adolf Hitler?
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