When is physician-assisted suicide not really suicide? Apparently when medical professionals say it isn’t.
Culture whitewashes words: WASHINGTON (BP) – When is physician-assisted suicide not really suicide? Apparently when medical professionals say it isn’t.
The American Public Health Association has joined the Oregon Department
of Human Services in redefining the act of a terminally ill person
taking drugs to kill himself. Terms such as “suicide” or
“physician-assisted suicide” should be rejected in favor of such
phrases as “aid in dying” or “patient-directed dying,” the APHA decided
in a resolution announced Dec. 20.
The APHA’s Governing Council adopted the resolution in early November
as an interim policy until it is confirmed in 2007. The resolution
calls on reporters, public policy makers and medical personnel to use
the “value-neutral terms” to describe a “mentally competent, terminally
ill” person taking his own life.
The council cited in its resolution Oregon’s October decision to halt
the use of “physician-assisted suicide” to describe those who take
their own lives with the aid of lethal prescriptions from doctors.
Instead, the state’s Department of Human Services will refer to such
people as “persons who use the Oregon Death With Dignity Act.”
Oregon, the only state that has legalized assisted suicide, has
recorded 246 deaths by such means since its Death With Dignity Act took
effect in late 1997.
Wesley Smith, a bioethics specialist and lawyer, decried the euphemistic sleight of hand.
“This is pure politics, of course,” Smith wrote on the bioethics.com web log. “It isn’t medicine. And it isn’t health.”
A “surreal world” is being entered, he said. “Words mean nothing other
than what we want them to at the moment, and this is changeable from
moment to moment. Clocks run backwards. Up is down, and east is west.
The moon is made of blue cheese, if that serves our purposes. And the
basic institutions of society are being steadily corrupted.”
The APHA, founded in 1872, represents more than 50,000 members in about 50 public health occupations.
European perspective: A doctor
has acknowledged he turned off the life support machine of Piergiorgio
Welby, a muscular dystrophy patient who died Dec. 20 in Italy.
Welby, 60, had sought euthanasia in a high-profile case but was denied
the right by a court, according to BBC News. A judge had ruled Dec. 16
Welby had the right to have the life support machine turned off, but
doctors would be legally required to revive him, the BBC reported.
Mario Riccio, a physician, said he fulfilled Welby’s wish but denied it
was euthanasia. “This must not be mistaken for euthanasia,” Riccio said
in a Rome news conference, according to the BBC. “Refusing treatment is
a right. In Italian hospitals therapies are suspended all the time, and
this does not lead to any intervention from magistrates or to problems
of conscience.”
Euthanasia is illegal in Italy, and the Roman Catholic Church denied a
religious funeral for Welby. The Associated Press reported the Rome
Diocese said it declined the family’s request for a religious funeral
because of Welby’s “repeated and publicly affirmed” effort to take his
own life, an act the church opposes.
The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland are countries that permit euthanasia.
Great Britain statistics: More
than 100 teen-aged girls a month are undergoing their second abortions
in England or Wales, and at least one female under 18 years of age has
had six abortions.
The Independent, a London newspaper, reported the following 2005
statistics gained under a Freedom of Information request from the
Department of Health:
–1,316 girls under 18 had their second abortions.
— 90 minors had their third abortions.
–44 women, including 20 less than 30 years old, had undergone at least eight abortions by the end of the year.
Rights for Robots: Robots may vote and be entitled to healthcare in 50 years.
No, this is not intended as a joke. It is a serious prediction in a
study commissioned by Great Britain’s Office of Science and
Innovation’s Horizon Scanning Center.
The predictions for developments by 2056 include an examination of the
potential advances in artificial intelligence. The paper predicts a
“monumental shift” could take place if robots develop the ability to
reproduce or upgrade themselves, according to the BBC.
If such an advancement occurs, robots could be granted voting rights,
be provided housing and healthcare benefits, and be required to pay
taxes and serve in the military, the BBC reported.
Offsetting the culture: New
from LifeWay Christian Resources: Girls Ministry Handbook. Written by
Jimmie L. Davis, This handbook is the perfect guide for a minister or
volunteer who wants to begin and nurture a girls’ ministry in their
local church. It provides basic information on the need for girls’
ministry and the steps to starting one. It also gives lots of practical
tips that the leader can use as she plans activities and Bible studies
for teen girls. It also guides the leader in developing a well-rounded
ministry that focuses not only on teen girls, but also their families.