…Connecticut residents. [1] Early in the crisis, members of the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics wrote chillingly that “typical medical options may soon not be available to everyone.” Yet, as concerned health care providers said, “Guidelines that evaluate patients by age or ‘comorbid conditions [that] impact survival’ or ‘underlying medical diseases that may hinder recovery’ implicitly rely on value judgments about these patients’ qualit…
…that in about half of those cases, there is no independent witness, no medical provider at the death, and in those cases we can’t actually know if the drug was self-administered or if the person consented at the time of death. Although- Emma Wilson: So, Diane, you have a lot of questions about what mindset the patient is in, what support they’re receiving, I mean George, that’s something again that comes up, people say why help terminally ill peop…
…mates.” Here’s an excerpt: But by using what the bioethicist Arthur Caplan calls “the Mayan Protocol”—a term derived from the ancient Mayan practice of vivisecting their human sacrifices—the removal of organs would itself be the method of execution. If this sounds inhumane, compare it to current practices: botched hangings, painfully long gassings, and messy electrocutions. Removal of the heart, lungs, and kidneys (under anesthesia, of course) wou…
…whether disabled or not. Drawing on those same principles, we support medical marijuana. We chose our name Second Thoughts because we find that many people, once they delve below the surface appeal of assisted suicide, have “second thoughts” and oppose it. In Massachusetts a month before the election, 68% of voters supported the ballot question. But just as closer looks in Massachusetts – and more recently in New Hampshire and New Jersey – led to…
…doctors have some pretty bad attitudes about what living life with a disability will mean in terms of quality. The show is online and you can listen to it here (mp3 format). –Stephen Drake…
