The Oath

Hat tip to Michael R. Denton who blogs at For the Greater Glory on this MSNBC article on doctors who refuse to prescribe treatments which are contrary their moral or religious beliefs. Of note was one particular sentence in the article (by an attorney):

"Doctors swear an oath to serve their patients."

Oh really? I must have missed that part of the Hippocratic Oath. I swore to first do no harm. Not quite the same thing as swearing an oath to serve my patients.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Abortion May Increase Risk for Suicide

From across "the pond:"

At a press conference called by Ms Winterton in the House of Commons, Dr Stammers said that in 26 years in medical practice, he had treated many women suffering from depression relating to previous abortions.

And consultant gynaecologist Dr Robert Balfour cited a study of 5,000 women in Finland between 1987 and 2000, which found those who had an abortion were six times more likely to commit suicide than those who had given birth in the past year.

Dr Balfour said that statistics from his home area of south Wales suggested that there were more psychiatric admissions and suicides among women who had abortions than those who gave birth.

Gay Adoption Paper Flawed

Medical societies and organizations are coming under increased pressure by the gay and lesbian communities to adopt certain positions on social issues which are favorable to homosexuals. As these pressures and influences increase, look for objective scientific reporting to become increasingly agenda driven. As an example, consider the issue of gay adoption.

"Conclusive" Report by American Academy of Pediatrics on Homosexual Adoption Shown to be Full of Holes
Said to contain "major quotation and interpretive errors that ... invalidate the conclusions in the article."

By Elizabeth O'Brien

IOWA, 1 June 2007 ( LifeSiteNews.com) - Over the past five years, Dr. Sharon Quick, a member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and retired Clinical Assistant Professor from the Washington School of Medicine, has analyzed all of the major scientific literature that was used in the 2002 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Technical Report on Same-Sex "Marriage" Adoptions. The final report was printed in the highly influential Pediatrics journal and concludes by supporting the adoption of children by Gay and Lesbian Couples.

In an Iowa court-case in late May, Dr. Quick gave her official testimony that the Technical Report "contains major quotation and interpretive errors that, irrespective of the quality of the studies cited, invalidate the conclusions in the article."

Many medical societies trust the accuracy of the AAP's investigations and base their policies upon its reports. The report influenced the American Medical association, for example, to support the adoption of children by same-sex parents. The Report was also as evidence in the Massachusetts legal battle over same-sex union and in United States Supreme Court cases as well.

Dr. Sharon Quick discovered that the report inaccurately references an unprecedented 57 percent of its scientific literature. The list of grossly misgathered and misrepresented information reveals the bias and inaccuracy in the Technical Report.

Many other examples of flawed research can be found. But it is very dangerous and harmful to society when political correctness trump sound medical research.

Cardinal Pell Will Not Be Silenced

One of the more courageous of the Catholic Church refuses to be bullied by liberals who would like to see embryonic stem cells used for medical research. George Cardinal Pell, of Australia, has come under fire for refusing to remain silent on the issue.

Last month, Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, threatened to deny communion to them because the bill would fund the destruction of human life as scientists obtain the cells from days-old unborn children.

Since then, he has come under fire for the comments and some members of the province's parliament have indicated they think its wrong for a top religious official to speak out on political issues.

Pell called those elected officials "intolerant parliamentarians" for trying to silence him. They have asked the State Parliament's privileges committee to determine whether his comments about Catholic politicians was in contempt of Parliament.

So much for the myth of liberal "tolerance."

An exercise of choice

From the Great Falls Tribune online:

"A Great Falls pharmacy's decision to phase out the sale of prescription birth control pills for moral reasons is stirring a small firestorm of controversy locally and a buzz of criticism nationwide on women's health Web sites."

The rest of the story is here.

When did contraception become basic health care for women?

Just one more piece of evidence that the only choices that matter to those who define themselves as "pro-choice" are those which support their cause.

Physician Assisted Suicide

There is a recent piece on public opinion regarding physician assisted suicide which suggests that a significant portion of the American population support physicians in this role.

New York - More than two-thirds of Americans believe there are circumstances in which a patient should be allowed to die, but they are closely divided on whether it should be legal for a doctor to help terminally ill patients end their own lives by prescribing fatal drugs, a new AP-Ipsos poll finds.

The results were released Tuesday, just days before euthanasia advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian is freed from a Michigan prison after serving more than eight years for second-degree murder in the poisoning of a man with Lou Gehrig's disease.

And now California is considering a bill which permit, as in Oregon, physicians to assist in the suicide of their patients.

California's Legislature is advancing a proposal modeled after Oregon's law permitting patients diagnosed with six months or less to live to take lethal pills prescribed by their doctor.

The issue has stirred emotion from the Capitol to the pulpits, with supporters casting it as a matter of personal choice and opponents saying it is an immoral compromise of the sanctity of life and a doctors' oath to do no harm.

The two sides agree on this much: If California legalizes physician-assisted suicide, it will prompt many other states to follow suit and perhaps even prepare the way for a national law.

At the root of the efforts are misguided attempts to help the terminally ill. Under treated pain, depression, the feeling of abandonment, loss of dignity and the loss of a joyful existence lead many to consider suicide. Clearly all of these conditions are manageable and a truly compassionate response from family, friends and caregivers would be aimed at alleviating physical and psychological suffering. Physicians have a responsibility to resist attempts at legalizing suicide and work to educate the public about truly charitable care of the terminally ill.

Eugenics: Alive and Well

There was a time before Hitler and the Nazis euthanized the mentally retarded and the disabled in Germany when prominent Americans advocated draconian policies for similar unfortunates in the United States. No less the jurist than Oliver Wendell Holmes advocated forced sterilization of disabled in this country. Although eugenics was eventually turned back at the time, it seems to be making a resurgence in mainstream academic circles. An excellent editorial details the risks to the disabled in this country today.

This month marked the 80th anniversary of the disgraceful Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell, which upheld Virginia's involuntary sterilization laws. In his majority opinion, Holmes declared: "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind . . . Three generations of imbeciles is enough."

Though society may be inclined to regard Holmes's detestable opinion in Buck v. Bell as a relic of a time past, eerie similarities exist in contemporary remarks of the well-respected.

Justifying the sterilization of "genetically unfit" individuals, Holmes wrote that Carrie Buck was "the probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring."

Some 72 years later, renowned embryologist Bob Edwards said, "Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children."

In recent years, Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, has said, "It does not seem quite wise to increase any further draining of limited resources by increasing the number of children with impairments."

In January, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urged all women regardless of age to undergo prenatal screening for Down syndrome, aware of statistics that greater than 85 percent of pregnancies diagnosed with Down syndrome end in abortion.

Last fall, Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists argued for "active euthanasia" of significantly disabled newborns to spare parents emotional and financial burden.

Two years earlier, the Groningen Protocol emerged in the Netherlands; it proposed selection criteria for euthanizing babies and children with disabilities.

Tell the little girls above that one of them is unworthy of life. Tell them that only those deemed "unimpaired" deserve the protection and resources of society. Go ahead. Tell them.

The depravity of men, many of whom enjoy respect of their social and academic peers, is truly unlimited when there is no recognition of the dignity each human life enjoys because of being...well, human, and created in the image of God himself.

Cross-posted at www.eyehackerblog.com.