Posted on 09/21/2004 12:49:05 PM PDT by VxH
The Quiet Killings
the aging, the obese, the nonconforming
by
Dorothy Anne Seese
Medical care for the elderly, the obese, smokers, and others whose lifestyle is non-conforming to modern government standards is perfectly legal -- by refusal to treat those who do not pass muster when it comes to meeting clinical standards. Those clinical standards are set by the World Health Organization (WHO), an arm of the United Nations, and by doctors and clinic administrators who determine who shall and shall not be eligible for treatment of chronic ailments. Just add this to the list at the other end of the spectrum, fifty million aborted children since the Supreme Court opinion upholding Roe v. Wade in January, 1973.
The terms "super power" and "land of the free" are mutually exclusive in a society where might makes right has replaced the rule of law, and that is what has happened in the United States since 1965, the year the "Great Society" was introduced to America and socialist control began to replace individual freedom.
There are penalties now for certain behaviors that are expanding. One example is that some states require "children" to be kept in certain types of car seats (even when a 12-year old is larger than his parents) and yet forbids parents to discipline such children for disobedience, promiscuous sex or ignoring parental curfews. Parents who attempt to instill in their children the tenets of the Christian faith have been punished by judges and ordered to stop teaching "hate" doctrines from the Bible, and this in a land where there is a constitutional guarantee of religious freedom and a prohibition against governmental intervention with such freedom. Yet judges and justices do this regularly, with impunity, and with the full force of the Supreme Court behind them in case of a dispute. Certain portions of the Bible can be labeled as "thought hate crimes" by national and international courts, particularly those verses of the Bible dealing with sodomy which was once considered an abomination by nearly everyone in America. Now it is an accepted alternative lifestyle taught in public schools that are federally subsidized by taxpayer dollars, including the taxes from those who object to that alternative lifestyle.
Certain doctors refuse to treat patients who use tobacco. Some clinics will not admit patients who use or have used tobacco. An ever-increasing number of insurance companies refuse to insure smokers, and more than ever, employers refuse employment to those who use tobacco. The control factors come from all directions, and is sufficient reason for parents to teach children that they will avoid all use of tobacco if they want a higher education, a good job, medical insurance and ongoing medical care as well as socially acceptable friends. This control began with a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1983 wherein a woman claimed her health was harmed by working in an establishment where others smoked. After that decision, the great lawsuits against the tobacco companies began, and tobacco use became not a matter of choice regardless of the health ramifications, but of compulsion if a person doesn't wish to live life in the woods away from society.
A woman with whom I am acquainted has a peculiar and undiagnosed overweight problem. When she had gallstones, one physician refused to treat her and told her to stop overeating -- he did not even take tests to diagnose whether she had gallbladder or any other internal problem. Another physician did test, and her gallbladder was removed. The puffiness from the systemic poisoning is gone, but after extensive testing, no clue has yet emerged as to why this lady, an undereater and large consumer of salads, is totally unable to lose weight. However, the obesity fanatics will judge her on her size, for the most part, rather than on medical tests. If you look worthy of care, you shall receive it and if you appear on the surface to be unworthy, you will be refused. That is a standard part of American medicine today, those who are refused care can quietly die.
Still another case is that of a woman who needed to find a new primary care physician after her former doctor retired and moved. She had a serious sino-bronchial infection but was being treated for back problems by an osteopath. She made an appointment with an M.D. whose office was fairly close to where she lived, and when he came into the examining room, he asked her if she smoked. She said she did. He told her he refused all patients who smoked, her problem was chronic bronchitis and to stop smoking, it would go away. She had an appointment the next day with the osteopath who was treating her back, and he said she needed an immediate prescription for an antibiotic. She told the osteopath about the incident the day before, whereupon the osteopath said "his personal opinions have nothing to do with the fact you have infection and need treatment now." He wrote her a prescription for a powerful antibiotic which she took and the infection was killed. She did not have chronic bronchitis but infection. She was refused treatment for a behavior, not for her condition, and had it not been treated, she might have quietly died of the infection. Such is American medicine today.
Children and adults are being fed tons of sugar and chemicals followed by dozens of prescriptions that a good, healthy, balanced diet of food untreated with antibiotics, harmones, pesticides and various additives could prevent. The breakdown of the nuclear home or the two-income family where wives work has made instant meals almost a necessity. More and more, people are beginning to recognize that something is wrong when today's children suffer from defects unheard of forty years ago. Forty-plus years ago children had various childhood diseases, lived through them and went ahead with life. Now the school system, excess administrators and federal monitors are ready, willing and judicially able to remove children from "unsuitable" homes (those that teach Bible precepts or administer what all former generations called parental discipline) and place the children in foster homes where they can just disappear, or be drugged into a stupor that will one day lead to other drug use. This is American liberty in the home today -- a faux liberty that results in many quiet deaths. Well, the dying may not be quiet but the media is very quiet.
Every older person in the condo complex where I have my studio unit dreads the day when they will be unable to take care of themselves. Fortunately for many, they have children who care enough to take care of their parents when they become unable to live independently. I do not, and there are widows here who for one reason or another cannot live with their grown children. What we face, particularly since this is not a high-income section of Sun City, is the quiet killing of the elderly in nursing homes by incompetence or by process of elimination of the census of the aged through the administration of drugs that will lead to death.
The idea of the sanctity of life in America has disappeared along with the rights of choice and free speech.
The day is rapidly coming upon us when articles such as this will no longer be able to be published on the internet without serious repercussions. It's called censorship. To criticize the government, a key to the founders' idea of liberty, will be an illegal activity against the state.
But how can we anticipate any general regard for the sanctity of life in a nation that thinks nothing of murdering fifty million unborn babies? Or has bills before legislatures on the "right to die" which translates into a duty to die when one is older and useless to a productive society?
It's all a matter of keeping things under control, government control, and the best way to do it is with these quiet killings. They are happening now.
bump
Isn't this the "free choice" which the author espouses later in the article? None of these are examples of government coercion, but rather the freedom of individuals to determine with whom they wish to do business.
>>Isn't this the "free choice"
Is an individual ever free from their own appetite?
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