No, it's ok to discuss the parallels between bio-ethics then and now. It's calling people inflamatory names that gets people fired up and frustrated.
The Nazis were working on the idea of eugenics and that the value of a person was what that person contributed to the state.
Although occasionally someone brings up the cost issue, for the most part, what we are seeing now are conflicts based on "personhood" based on brain function = self.
There is danger that we will cross the line thinking we are "pulling the plug" on people who have experienced brain death, or are unable to live without extraordinary means when if we hadn't intervened, the person probably would have already died, such as a person who has had a massive stroke but has been intubated and is being kept alive until something like his kidneys fail.
For me there is a difference between that and starving a person who is not in physical failure. This is a moral decision - the state of the art in bioethics says that if too much brain damage has happened, he, the part of him that was there before the trauma is dead, and the body isn't worth saving. I disagree with that viewpoint, but the laws of our land allow a person to choose to refuse treatment. If a person has indicated they wish to do this, it would be wrong of me to make them take treatment. Because of my moral stance, I suspect the best I can do is lobby for laws that improve pvs diagnosis, require clear determination that this was in the person's wishes, and make sure that guardians don't have conflicts of interest.
I watch the economics argument carefully. I am not happy with the Texas law giving hospitals the right to pull the plug exactly the way they do right now...but at least they give the family some time to make other arrangements. I would like the law to give the family more time to deal with it. I am uncomfortable with triage of stable patients. But so far, the cases that have made the news have been sad, hopeless and perhaps cases that ought to be let go.
I will not call the board at St. Luke's Hospital in Houston Nazis because they reach these conclusions. There is a point where it can be time to let go. The hard point is making a set of rules that makes sure it doesn't happen because our definition of quality of life reflects someone's prejudice about life's quality rather than medical reality. And there will be differences of opinion on this.
Ummm, How about Judges that administer to those Laws, with the conscience and morality that a proper society requires....? Or is that too much to ask.?
Does anyone here seriously think that if Greer, or Whittemore had called in some Independent experts, to make a sufficiently well informed decision about the propriety of their decisions, that we would be going through this?
Of Course not. And they REFUSED TO DO IT, After Congress Legislated just such a course. Therein lies the heart of this matter.