…to comfort those who cannot be healed. This is our mission. Our patients trust us with preserving and protecting their lives. If we were to hasten or cause death, regardless of the motive, we squander this trust and sacrifice the essence of what it means to be doctors. It would change how we physicians view our own profession and would certainly change how society view us. Euthanasia would conspire with overzealous organ procurement in intensive…
…s don’t even get investigated. This will give them set them apart from the rule of law in ways that don’t apply to police or even to soldiers on the battlefield. On a final note, we (at NDY) are grateful to Ford for speaking out on the racist aspects of the handling of the Katrina cases. We can’t help but wonder, though, if being both Black and disabled (as the Katrina hospital victims were) or both Latino and disabled (as Ruben Navarro was) incre…
…e press at this time. We sincerely hope this allegation turns out to be untrue. And we are all hoping that the young girl pulls through this medical crisis. But if it is true, it’s time to demand that the media and parent “advocates” behave with more restraint and responsibility than they have in the coverage of the alleged murder of 3-year-old Katie McCarron by her mother. Coverage of the alleged murder of Katie McCarron has been dominated by dis…
…distorted and abused. Meaningful self-determination gets bypassed and obstructed in favor of a rush to judgment that cuts short the lives of newly disabled people based on ignorant and outmoded judgments about quality of life. We urge NCD to come up to speed on health care decisions laws because national guidance is needed to help reshape these laws to prevent discrimination in these life and death judgments. My written comments include action st…
…media reports, called the recovery of Jesse Ramirez “a miracle.” In an ABC News story attempting to explore the ethical implications of the Ramirez case, Dr. Steven Miles gave a frank assessment of apparent rush to end the life of Jesse Ramirez: “This case is about a hasty clinical decision which should have never been made,” he says. “In terms of the process itself, stopping the feeding tube this close in time to the injury is actually pretty unu…
