10 posts tagged “bioethics”
A one year old boy, who could have a tracheotomy, be taken home from the hospital and live his life, may have his ventilator removed at the wishes of his mother and the HOSPITAL TRUST PAYING FOR HIS CARE, because his severe physical disability has been deemed 'intolerable suffering'. His father disagrees and is fighting for his son's life.
"'Rational' Suicide Advocates Push Assisted Suicide in Mental Health Journals"- A podcast edition of bioethicist Wesley J. Smith's 'What It Means to be Human'
As both a Christian and a caregiver for the elderly and those with disabilities, I'm struck with this Biblical view point- sin obstructs our decision making process. In our fallen state, we often make choices, including medical choices, for the wrong reasons- often for motives that appeal to the flesh or mere human reasoning. While patients should remain a crucial part of the decision making process regarding their medical treatment and doctors should have the freedom to discern the best care for his/her patient, both patients and doctors would be wise to remember that human reasoning does not always lead us to the right choices. Bioethics is attempting to set standards for the conduct of medicine and healthcare in an age of new knowledge and changing science. However, bioethicists are setting these standards from a fallen state of mind. Truth is subjective to them, as are ethics, dependent on such things as a person’s worldview, religion, and philosophy. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12, 16:25) If this proverb has ever been relevant, it is so with bioethics. When we, as Christians, set standards for how we care for the sick and needy, we must remember that truth is not relative. The truth- the Biblical truth- about who God is and who man is plays a critical role in regard to medical decisions that affect the lives of the weak and the needy. All of those we care for in the hospital bed, teach life skills to in the group home, or 'produce' in the laboratory are deserving of dignity and respect for the sole reason that "In the image of God, made He man." (Genesis 9:6) So, while scientists can manipulate genes and clone embryos, we can never engineer the image of God out of a human being. This truth alone could set the tone for any medical ethic. However, likewise, in our attempts to manipulate genes and clone embryos to eradicate diseases and eliminate disabilities, we can never create a person who will not inherit the struggle with sin. As much as we are created in the image of God, we are also sons of Adam; therefore, there will never be a perfect person. Our only hope remains, as it always has, in Christ and Him crucified. In His work on the cross- the great exchange, the righteous for the unrighteous, the suffering for our sins so He could save us from them and bring us to God. This is incredible mercy and incredible love. Despite the uniqueness of each created person, in these two things- our common created image and our common depravity- man can be considered virtually identical to one another. Our worth could not be contingent upon any work or ability. To say that a person is too weak or does not contribute enough is laughable compared to the greatness and splendor and perfection that is in God! All men fall short of that Glory. We are all too weak and no one ‘contributes’ enough! For all of us, our worth is dependent only on who we are through the work of Christ at the cross. With new life in Christ through the cross, we are given new nature and the told to renew our minds. In both this new nature and in our renewed minds, we view suffering, ethics, and caring for the weak and the vulnerable differently. We now consider those weaker than we are, and we realize that it is a sin to not show them the same grace and mercy we were given, even if one is so weak that he or she is not even cognitively aware of it. Suffering is horrible. It is no light thing. We are better off dead and at peace with our Maker than alive on this dead earth! But in our renewed minds, we know, also, that we cannot take suffering into our own hands, as those in bioethics seem to do. We can never consider breaking God’s commandment to not murder, for instance, through abortion and euthanasia because we deem someone to be suffering too much. We cooperate with nature and conform to the way God created it. For when we attempt to manipulate nature (think of the undignified 'Ashley Treatment') and destroy that which we judge undesirable- destroy whom we judge undesirable because of the sufferings they are given- we question God’s goodness and wisdom leaving us rebuked as Job was- “Where was man when God laid the foundation of the earth?” As we painfully watch those around us suffer, doing all we can to ease their suffering, we are to suffer with those suffering. We are not to cooperate with the hopelessness that suffering brings by manipulating the death one suffering or who we assume will suffer after birth. Instead we offer them and their loved ones the hope of Christ found in His Gospel, that those who call upon His name will be saved from their sin soaked hearts, from the wrath of God, and from hell. And that those who call upon His name will be saved to new life in Christ, to a perfect and holy body in eternity, and the unimaginable joy of eternity in the presence of the Creator. Because of the unity we have with Christ (because of the great love and mercy shown to us at the cross), we, in humility, count others more significant than ourselves. We look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others. We have this mind among ourselves, which is ours in Christ Jesus Who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:1-8) And so we humble ourselves to one another, using our freedom to serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13), taking tender care of the weak (1 Thessalonians 5:14), seeking justice and encouraging the oppressed (Isaiah 1:17), and becoming disabled to the disabled (1 Corinthians 9:22) in order to share the Gospel to all people, in hopes that all people will be saved from, among other things, their fallen states of minds, having their minds aligned with Christ and His purposes for all things- including suffering and caring for those suffering.
The Media's Love for Suicide Outlaws
On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Wesley J. Smith takes a look at the media’s fawning treatment of suicide advocates. What does a reporter see when he visits the home of a suicide facilitator? Strangely and sadly, he often sees a hero.
Listen in as bioethicist Wesley J. Smith shows how journalism has become a prime mover in the culture of death, to the point that its terminal nonjudgmentalism cannot be trusted.
Bioethicist expert Wesley J Smith was on Monday's Albert Mohler radio program discussing "troubling new developments in the world of bioethics. From movements to dismantle human exceptionalism, granting rights to apes and even 'nature', to the spread of the so-called "right to die" crusade..."
It's worth listening to.
"No person who is suffering is a problem to be solved. They're a person to be loved." -Rev Paul R. Smith
I-1000 is a proposed initiative to legalize physician assisted suicide in the state of Washington.
Assisted suicide. It would be hard to argue with the fact that anyone receiving the news that s/he had a terminal illness would be depressed. One cannot deny that depression would play a major role in one's choice to commit suicide. When doctors begin setting a precedent of assisted depressed people in committing suicide, can you imagine the consequences for depressed people everywhere?
Looking at assisted suicide, we can see how such a legalized action would create a feeling of a duty to die for those with illnesses, as well as the feeling by the rest of us that those with terminal illnesses have a duty to die. In Oregon's first years with legalized physician assisted suicide, a large number of people who committed suicide did so out of fear of becoming a burden to their family. With limited financial resources, or at least claims of limited financial resources, the rest of us might indeed feel that those who were 'dying anyway' had a duty to die, especially if the person is old or poor or has a severe cognitive disability. The kind of people who have 'used their share' of public or private health care, the kind of people we deem to have a 'low quality of life', after all.
Another factor in a person choosing suicide is a fear of disability. In the first two years of Oregon's assisted suicide law, those who committed suicide did so out of fear of being unable to pursue enjoyable life activities, fear of needing personal assistance with daily living, and worries about being a burden on their families. Disability Rights activist Paul Longmore spoke about this aspect of Oregon's experience:
Fear of disability typically underlies assisted suicide... The advocates play on that horror of "dependency." ...If needing help is undignified and death is better than dependency, there is no reason to deny assisted suicide to people who will have to put up with it for six or sixteen years, rather than just six months. Not that we favor assisted suicide if it is limited to terminally ill people. We simply want to ask, has this country gotten to the point that we will abet suicide because people can't wipe their own behinds?
Lastly, physician assisted suicide will lead to euthanasia. After all, what about those with disabilities who can't take their lethal prescription on their own? Isn't that discrimination? They'll need someone to feed the pills to them. Once we become accustomed to the idea of physicians practicing death, we will begin to tolerate more extreme versions, more extreme that a doctor 'simply' assisting a person who is dying, more than a physician who is providing a 'good death' to people who can't do it themselves. How far could this go?
From the Coalation Against Assisted Suicide's website:
"Pressure for improved palliative care appears to have evaporated [in the Netherlands]," according to Herbert Hendin, M.D. Dr. Hendin is a Director of Suicide Prevention International and was formerly the Medical Director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
"Over the past two decades," Hendin continued, "the Netherlands has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, from euthanasia for the terminally ill to euthanasia for the chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress and from voluntary euthanasia to nonvoluntary and involuntary euthanasia.
"Once the Dutch accepted assisted suicide it was not possible legally or morally to deny more active medical (assistance to die), i.e. euthanasia, to those who could not effect their own deaths. Nor could they deny assisted suicide or euthanasia to the chronically ill who have longer to suffer than the terminally ill or to those who have psychological pain not associated with physical disease. To do so would be a form of discrimination.
Involuntary euthanasia has been justified as necessitated by the need to make decisions for patients not [medically] competent to choose for themselves."
Doctors can help people in severe pain due to a terminal illness with palliative care. The rest of can meet the need of someone alone with the fear of being abandoned in their illness, in their fear of being a 'burden'. Though we don't do it well, right now. How else could something like physician assisted suicide gain so much popularity?
There are other options besides sanctioning the suicide of people dying.
For more information, visit the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide at www.noassistedsuicide.com .
I've been reading again. Not very fast and not very much, but I am very much enjoying having this gift of reading back.
I've read two very different books this past month and a half, Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears and Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America by Wesley J. Smith.
Book One
I chose Vintage Jesus because it promised to give a sort of 'theology lesson' in response to today's lack of basic Bible knowledge. I've been acquiring a taste for theology and doctrine again. The prospect of studying those things has been scary for me considering how much spiritual abuse I endured as a child in the name of both.
In addition, God spent about two years knocking out most of the legalism in me disguised as theology and doctrine to get to the 'heart' stuff and to establish a relationship between the two of us and His community. So, I have a worry that studying theology and doctrine will take me back into legalism.
But the book Vintage Jesus seemed 'light' enough according to various reviews I read of it. More importantly, after watching Mark Driscoll's teachings online, he seemed truthful enough. In addition, Mark Driscoll is a Reformed pastor, and I was curious about Reformed theology. However, the book didn't get too much into Reformed theology as much as it did basic theology.
Still, it felt very good to read basic theology again. I had not really done so, except where it pertained to areas of inner healing, since I was in elementary school. I loved theology as a kid, the real, truthful theology, because it felt like history and the reasons for the history. I loved history and true stories as a kid, as well as, 'the reason for it all'. Still do.
However, this book didn't go beyond much of the basics, and I was left asking a lot of questions. The book, I think, addressed of lot of 'Who', 'what', 'where', and 'when' questions, like Who was/is Jesus?, what did/does He do?, and when/where did/will it all take place?, but I found myself asking a lot of why and how questions. Not a bad thing, I guess. Just leaves me curious for more theology.
I was put off at first by author Mark Driscoll's sophomoric humor and his sureness in making rude, and even crude, comments. He makes a lot of off color remarks (such as referring to 'liberals' as 'limp wristed') and made a lot of 'he's crazy' and 'he needs to take his medication' jokes, doing what a lot of us do, using 'crazy' and 'sinful' interchangeably.
But beyond the offensive jokes, his love of Jesus shone brightly and the glimpses he gave of his own testimony gave a lot of glory to God. So, I stuck out reading the book, and I'd recommend it, but with caution because of the rude and crude humor.
Book Two
Wesley J. Smith's book Culture of Death, though, I recommend even though I'm sure any reader with any kind of heart will be offended. As in the the subtitle, the book addresses the assault on medical ethics.
The relatively new field of bioethics is on its way to taking over the medical field and is becoming an ideology in itself. "Where medical ethics deals with the behavior of doctors in their professional lives vis-a-vis their patients, bioethics... focuses on the relationship between medicine, health, and society", pages 4-5. This means that the Hippocratic method of doctors doing what is best for their patients first (in fact many, if not most, doctors do not even take the Hippocratic oath anymore) is being abandoned for the bioethical ideals of what is 'best for society'.
The implications of this leads to things like legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia (for reasons such as easing the burden of family members who have a very sick family member or a family member with a severe cognitive disability). In addition, Futile Care Theory, where medicine is rationed, leaving the most sick and vulnerable medically neglected, is being practiced so that 'limited' resources can go to those with the best possibility for the greatest 'quality of life'.
The book addresses that society is abandoning the 'equality of life' ethic and actually valuing some lives as unworthy of life. Those designated 'unfit' in eugenics theory and 'useless eaters' during the Third Reich are now being termed 'nonpersons' in contemporary bioethics.
Smith sums us this book with this paragraph:
Whatever our moral future- whether based on life's inherent equality or upon subjective judgments of quality- that which we sow through our public policies and ethics protocols, we surely shall reap in the way in which we and those we love are treated in our individual lives. We all age. We fall ill. We grow weak. We become disabled. A day comes when our need to receive from our fellows adds up to far more than our ability to give in return. When we reach that stage of life, will we still be cherished, cared for, valued? Will we still be deemed persons, entitled to equal protection under the law? These are the questions that hang in the balance as we enter the new century.
This is a must read, or even a must 'skim through', not just for those in the field of medicine or healthcare, but for all of us. These are society's responsibilities. We need to know these things to be informed voters. More importantly, though, as Christians (this was not a Christian book) we need to informed pray-ers.
That's it?
So, that's it for my summer reading... But, I think I'd like to read something else. Any suggestions?
Update of Janet Rivera
From the Fresno Bee:
Rivera cousin granted temporary conservatorship
The cousin of Janet Rivera, a comatose Sanger woman, was granted temporary conservatorship of Rivera this morning, which means she will be kept on life support for now.
see full article
Related post, A Waste of Life?
In Fresno County lies a woman, Janet Rivera, in a coma. Not able to eat, she uses a feeding tube for nutrients. Not long ago, some court case somewhere decided that feeding tubes constitute life support. Of course, I disagree.
Either way, the county, her legal guardian, wants this piece of 'life support' removed, and had it removed for a little while. However, Mrs. Rivera lived longer than expected, so they reinstated her feeding tube to get a judge's opinion.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Rivera's family wishes to keep her alive. So, apparently, the county of Fresno can decide over her families wishes to take Mrs. Rivera's life.
The medical ethicist and legal experts interviewed for this article, continue to refer to end of life issues, calling this an end of life issue. However, Mrs. Rivera would not be at the end of her life had the county and these medical and legal folks not stepped in.
A person could live a long time with a feeding tube. Mrs. Rivera is alive. She is breathing on her own and she is not close to death. What is at issue here, is a judgment of her quality of life. The county deems it (her life) a waste.
A waste of what- money?
Her family feels that if she had more money or better health care coverage. While those involved in this situation say that financial considerations play no role in the decision to remove her feeding tube, some bioethicists say,
that regardless of whether money is an issue in Rivera's case, her situation raises a question that's impossible to ignore in the end-of-life debate: how to decide whether it's worth spending limited resources to maintain life support in an apparently hopeless case.
"The stewardship of scarce resources does require us to take resources into account," said Ben Rich, a University of California at Davis bioethics professor. "But it has to be done carefully."
from the article
Gotta love that bioethics field. I am currently reading Wesley J. Smith's book, Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America. This is what he has to say in that book about bioethics:
Medical ethics deals with the behavior of doctors in their professional lives vis-a`-vis their patients. Bioethics, as it has developed over the last few decades, focuses on the relationship between medicine, health, and society. This last element allows bioethicists to espouse values higher than the well-being of the individual and to perform the philosophical equivalent of triage.
...bioethics seeks to create a new morality of medicine that will define the meaning of health, determine when life loses its value, and forge the public policies that will promote a new medical and moral order. More than a set of tenuous speculations, bioethics in recent years has ossified into an ideology.
So, bioethicists work to change our morals, people debate or blog in response, and Mrs. Rivera lies in a coma, her fate in the hands of her county, apparently. Should she be allowed to suffer in this way? Not really our call. She's alive, and we aren't supposed to end a life. We are supposed to care for the person suffering, and for Mrs. Rivera's family.
Just in case you don't have enough blogs and websites to keep up with, I've been reading a very informative blog lately called Secondhand Smoke. It's authored by Wesley J. Smith, "a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, and a special consultant for the Center for Bioethics and Culture." (From the site.)
His blog consists of his view point regarding bioethics, etc. If you go to his site, you'll need your eyedrops, as his blog is quite the eye opener... so, your eyes will get dry after awhile from being open so long while reading... okay, sorry.
Incidentally, he's also the speaker from the lecture I wrote about a few days ago regarding the absolute value of human life. I found a short five minute clip of that lecture, btw.
