"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest." ~ Sophie Scholl
Posted on 03/30/2013 6:42:14 PM PDT by Morgana
The court-ordered starvation and dehydration death of Terri Schindler Schiavo eight years ago marked a watershed moment in our nation’s history. Millions of people both here and around the world became suddenly faced the reality that our society is not only willing, but seemingly eager, to treat those with disabilities as if they are expendable.
Among the many commentaries and reflections published in the wake of Terri’s death was a series of analyses in the pro-life publication Human Life Review. Yesterday we began discussing one of those articles written by columnist Nat Hentoff. In it, Nat wrote about society’s progression from the so-called “right to die” to the so-called “duty to die.”
Hentoff tells the story of Dr. Leo Alexander, an Austrian-born professor of psychiatric medicine at Tufts medical School. Dr. Alexander was an expert who served during the Nuremberg trials. After interviewing the German doctors who ran Hitler’s euthanasia program prior to the Holocaust, Dr. Alexander wrote an article that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in July 1949. Dr. Alexander wrote:
“Whatever proportion the [Nazi’s] crimes finally assumed, it becomes evident to all who investigated them that they had started from small beginnings. At first, there was merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of physicians. It started with the acceptance, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived.”
Mr. Hentoff notes that his shift in belief came before Hitler came into power. In 1920, Karl Binding was a prominent German lawyer who, along with Alfred Hoche, a distinguished forensic psychiatrist, wrote a short book entitled The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life.
Richard Evans author of The Coming of the Third Reich wrote that the authors of this small book “emphasized that the incurable ill and the mentally retarded were costing millions of marks [German currency] and taking up thousands of much-needed hospital beds. So doctors should be allowed to put them to death.”
Many German doctors were thus already inclined to follow Hitler’s orders to rid the German state of disabled individuals who were supposedly using up vast resources. An October 2003 Associated Press article reported:
“A new study reveals Nazi Germany killed at least two hundred thousand people because of their disabilities – people deemed physically inferior…Researchers found evidence that doctors and hospital staff used gas, drugs, and starvation to kill disabled men and women and children at medical facilities in Germany, Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic.”
Not long before he died, Dr. Alexander read an article that was signed by ten physicians from distinguished medical schools and institutions. The article appeared in the same New England Journal of Medicine he had written his famous essay in years before which argued that it was “morally justifiable” to withdraw nutrition supplements and fluids from various patients, including those deemed to be in a “persistent vegetative state.” These doctors argued that it was perfectly acceptable to withhold these life-sustaining treatments and “[allow] the patient to die.”
Dr. Alexander commented to a friend, “It is much like Germany in the 20s and 30s. The barriers against killing are coming down.”
We have seen the struggle between those who argue for the right to life regardless of the ability or disability of a person and those who would argue that those people who have disabilities are somehow inferior or less worthy of the right to life.
We are seeing the waters tested with arguments regarding a patient’s so-called “quality of life” and “futile care theory.”
Please join us again tomorrow as we continue with Nat Hentoff’s reflections on Terri Schindler Schiavo and society’s slide toward a so-called “duty to die.”
I will never forget what they did to her!
Thank you for the threads Morgana. Part 3 is out now. http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2013/03/pro-life-perspective-nat-hentoffs-reflections-on-terri-schiavo-part-3/#.UVfyHMu9KSM .
I hope Terri’s worthless husband has nightmares every night of his life for what he did to that poor woman. I also hope he has a good story prepared for God.
I just hope one day he asks God to forgive him.
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