“End of Life” – Questions and a Suggested Response for Disability Advocates

October 6, 2007"end of life", bioethics, life-ending decisions, Our News & Commentary BlogStephen Drake

…tical thinking skills they pride themselves on. In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined. – Thomas Szasz For over a decade, “end of life care” coalitions in all fifty states worked on many fronts, all related to this expansive use of “end of life.” As part of that advocacy, the statutory powers of guardians and conservators were expanded, even to a degree that called for intervention of the Su…

Hastings Ctr Report: Article Claims Ashley X “Sacrificed for the disability rights agenda”

October 19, 2007bioethics, Our News & Commentary Blog, reality checkStephen Drake

…blame where it belongs – at the feet of the ethics committee members, transhumanists and other talking heads who tried to make the issue as simple as possible for public consumption. This also doesn’t exactly enhance my expectations for the upcoming meeting. This article is far below the standards one usually expects from the Hastings Center Report, even in the “perspectives” section. Disability rights activists and advocates can deal with critici…

Blogging Against Aversives – a little late

January 15, 2008bloggers, human rights, Our News & Commentary Blog, tortureStephen Drake

…on it as well as the use of contingent electric shock for the treatment of rumination as far back as the 1970s so I have to put my two cents worth on the aversives issue. Note to readers – the SIBIS was an early shock device that was much less painful than the device currently employed at the JRC. Exercising this rare opportunity to ask an “authority” on aversives a question in a public forum, I challenged Linscheid (who had talked about the impor…

Peter Singer – A Slippery Mind

March 20, 2008medical decisionmaking, Our News & Commentary Blog, Peter Singer, reality checkStephen Drake

…the contradiction this way: Singer has spent his career trying to lay down rules for human behavior which are divorced from emotion and intuition. His is a world that makes no provision for private aides to look after addled, dying old women. Yet he can’t help himself. “I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult,” he said quietly. “Perhaps it is more difficult than I thought before…

Shoving us off the lifeboat in a pandemic

May 5, 2008bioethics, lifeboat ethics, Our News & Commentary Blog, policyStephen Drake

…enters for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services. ( I suspect that the list would also include at least some people with labels of mental retardation, since the rationale for withholding treatment would be the same.) The list of “lifeboat rejects” includes: People older than 85 Those with severe trauma, which could include critical injuries from car crashes and shootings. Severely burned patients older than…