Posted on 03/29/2005 7:20:51 AM PST by MisterRepublican
My debate about Terri Schiavo’s case with Florida bioethicist Bill Allen on Court TV Online eventually got down to the nitty-gritty:
Wesley Smith: "Bill, do you think Terri is a person?"
Bill Allen: "No, I do not. I think having awareness is an essential criterion for personhood. Even minimal awareness would support some criterion of personhood, but I don't think complete absence of awareness does."
If you want to know how it became acceptable to remove tube-supplied food and water from people with profound cognitive disabilities, this exchange brings you to the nub of the Schiavo case — the “first principle,” if you will. Bluntly stated, most bioethicists do not believe that membership in the human species accords any of us intrinsic moral worth. Rather, what matters is whether “a being” or “an organism,” or even a machine, is a “person,” a status achieved by having sufficient cognitive capacities. Those who don’t measure up are denigrated as “non-persons.”
Allen’s perspective is in fact relatively conservative within the mainstream bioethics movement. He is apparently willing to accept that “minimal awareness would support some criterion of personhood” — although he doesn’t say that awareness is determinative. Most of his colleagues are not so reticent. To them, it isn’t sentience per se that matters but rather demonstrable rationality.
Thus Peter Singer of Princeton argues that unless an organism is self-aware over time, the entity in question is a non-person. The British academic John Harris, the Sir David Alliance professor of bioethics at the University of Manchester, England, has defined a person as “a creature capable of valuing its own existence.” Other bioethicists argue that the basic threshold of personhood should include the capacity to experience desire.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Would you love to be a fly on the wall if this person were ever to find himself as one of these "nonpeople"? I bet he would be singing a different tune.
We've only just beguunnnnn....
Chilling. this reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode I saw decades ago. Now it's coming true . . .
"So I guess anyone in a coma, vegetative state, or severely disabled is no longer a person entitled to any rights."
With maybe a change of law or two our United States are free to relieve themselves of the care of thousands of wards of their respective state. Which will be the first? California?
Are there any bioethicists who actually advocate ethical treatment of human beings? Just curious.
Sounds strangely close to the way the Nazis thought about people in similar life situations!
Why is it so many of these bioethicists come across as charter members of the Hemlock Society?
I always love Wesley.
Speaking of bio-ethics, Howard Stern had a Schiavo bit on his radio show this morning. He played sounds from a Humpback Whale, a moaning porno star and Terri Schiavo. Listeners were supposed to guess which was which. Classy guy that Stern.
Like everything through the leftist looking glass, ethics is upside down.
They should name it anti-ethics.
That is, indeed, where we are heading.
If this is what "Bio-ethicists" believe, they are misnamed as far as I'm concerned. They should be more aptly called "Bio-ghouls" because ghoulish behavior is where their purported "ethics" is taking us.
Yep, he never grew up. I enjoyed him two decades ago when I was much younger and his bits had some freshness and cleverness to them, but I haven't heard him in years.
I actually got upset that the FCC inquiry brought him public attention again. He's made enough money. I'd rather see him just fade away as a has-been than become a martyr. Oddly enough, the culture has caught up to him and surpassed him. I like a good laugh but there are limits.
PS So some humans are not "people?" Are we going back to the Dred Scott decision? I thought the 14th Amendment addressed that.
The animosity towards the religious right has been increasing. I notice it on several different forums I particpate on. Even on this one it has reared it's ugly head in these threads.
If this is what "Bio-ethicists" believe, they are misnamed as far as I'm concerned. They should be more aptly called "Bio-ghouls" because ghoulish behavior is where their purported "ethics" is taking us.
Nazis in our midst.
Be afraid.
Again.
Apply a strict test of the "law"....
If I walked in and cut her throat open, I would be arrested and prosecuted for murder.
If I walked in and gave her a drink of water, I'd be arrested and prosecuted for "life" ....
Judge Greer is the murderer, with Felos his coach and able assistant, cheerleader, and consultant. Micheal, an aiding and willing party to their crimes.
With maybe a change of law or two our United States are free to
relieve themselves of the care of thousands of wards of their
respective state.
=======
But first they should relieve themselves directly into the face of
Florida bioethicist Bill Allen !!! ;-))
Bill is a twit!
Bioethists are just another vehicle for the devil. Just like 'ministers' who hate Christianity, 'patriots' that hate America, atheists for the 'American Way'.
A wolf in sheep's clothing- an oldie but very effective tool for our cloven hoofed 'friend'.
Not that I've heard of, but do ping me if you find one!
The primary qualifications for designation as a bioethicist seem to be no conscience and a way with words.
Good point. That such relief would make me smile too.
George the Butcher Greer is indeeed a murderer.
Michael "Is the bitch dead yet?" Schiavo is also a murderer.
George Felos is a ghoul, a Nazi-wannabe killer of the mentally disabled.
A motley crew of death, selfishness, and destruction (to Terri's whole family).
Yes, it takes a village to kill a child, and a blind judge to decree it is so...
It goes to the heart of what I have always said, first in the context of abortion, and now, the pending extermination of "useless eaters" and "life unworthy of life". And that is, whenever a people insist on subjecting the designation of one's humanity to narrow definitions of one sort or another, the result can only be measureless destruction.
Oh! I get it!
People loose their "personhood" when they fall asleep!
That makes it easy. (/sarc.)
We'd all best be sleeping with one eye open.
So it would follow, therefore, that every person who slips into a coma is "at risk" of being declared a non-person.
If I get sick and lose consciousness and the attending medical personnel cannot guarantee that I'll wake up, say, a week or a month later, my family should pull the plug since I may (gasp!) no longer be a "person".
It's a good thing this man does not have a feeding tube to pull. Anyone who admittedly "does not think," makes it perfectly clear to those around him that he does not even possess having the awareness that is essential for personhood or survival. God knows that the woman who is deliberately being starved to death is aware that she is dying without reason, and no one except God knows what she thinks. Mr. Allen, on the other hand, who probably deems himself as having some sort of "awareness" for "personhood," plainly states he does "not think" not once, but twice. In only two sentences, he plainly admits he does not have the brains to meet his own criterion.
Rev 12:17 So the dragon was furious with the woman and left to wage war against the rest of her offspring--those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony about Jesus.
I wonder how far these people are from deciding those they call "the religious right" don't have "significant cognitive capacities"
$$$$
Two examples:
A death sentence was reversed this week because jurors consulted a bible.
Dr Cheshire, a neurologist from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville presented findings of his examination of Terri, and his findings were not admitted into evidence because he was a Christian, so therefore had an agenda.
This is our chilling future.
We have segued from political correctness in speech to only certain types of thought being deemed "acceptable." I despair of enough Americans waking up to this new reality before it is too late.
SAY, this NON-PERSON concept could be REAL HANDY.
I hope they make it law for the entire UNITED STATES.
One can commit the most dastardly of crimes against NON-PERSONS and never spend a day in jail (well, unless you work there).
AS a NON-PERSON:
You NO LONGER have to pay taxes.
You can Throw TRAFFIC TICKETS BACK IN THE COPS FACE.
You can Laugh at Bill Collectors!
(However, you can't officially vote Democratic until you are actually dead. Sorry!)
This is very, very scary....
Behold the coming of the new Nazis.
Bioethecist= Scientist who decides if it is ETHICAL to do Scientific Experiments on humans.
Euthanasia= Legal Suicide, but you must have a doctor's permission slip.
Good point.
Then you just wasted your time posting to this thread.
They might, but I fear it will be in their last moments of consciousness after they have involuntarily taken the needle.
A nation is pretty much doomed as a moral society when it finds the killing of innocent people to be acceptable. There is ample evidence that this has already occurred, and probably long ago. The ongoing holocaust of abortion, which the toll now approaching 50 million dead since 1973, is the most horrific indicator. Terri Schindler's impending execution at the order of a court of this land is simply the most visible sign. I had hoped, since human beings seem to be creatures of sight more than anything, that her public suffering and passion, as tragic as it is, might have some positive outcome in stirring public indignation at the spectacle of the slaughter of innocents. Sadly, given the polls, it seems to have merely fed the bloodlust of the culture of death.
Because these 'new' positions that people are being APPOINTED to, BIOETHICS SPECIALIST, or some such title, are the new wave.
The ones who will judge the quality of human life.
The ones who have the least respect for it, in that they are scientists, and experimentation is their primary goal, not free will, and life.
Everything they determine is ETHICALLY OK will be judged so because it is to advance SCIENCE!
Rationalization is our new GOD!~
So, if Terri desires water, she's in a Permanent Vegetative State (because Greer got the Schindler's attorney to agree to that as a "finding of fact" several years ago.)
But "does she value her own existence?" She's fighting for her life, I'd say she values her existence!
Gee, I wonder. 15 years deliberately withholding therapy -> I KNOW Micheal only values her dead.
So much for "Never Again". We have dehumanized the unborn, now we have dehumanized the mentally disabled. Hmmmm....I wonder who is next?
I have a co-worker who is scared for his two children (one adopted) they both have spinal bifida and have reduced mental capabilities. He and his wife fear that if they cannot support their children and the numerous medical needs that someday the state will decide to pull their feeding tubes and let them die like Terri.
We have had several fund raisers for this couple through the years to help them defray the medical costs, but someday it may not be enough or they fear the insurance company will drop them.
I use to think this was not a plausible outcome, but after the last month it is very much a reality this couple and this society faces!
30,000,000? We have killed 40,000,000 unborn, non-humans in America, and counting...
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