Wesley J. Smith: Even Many Doctors Want to Force Colleagues to Violate Hippocratic Oath

I wish these kind of columns had the courage to argue the actual issues primarily involved rather than side matters that are either irrelevant or extremely rare.

The culture of death takes joy in killing people, but the CANNOT admit this so they focus on trivialities.

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“Health Care Workers”??? Sounds like some kind of socialist new speak.

Whatever happened to “Doctors and Nurses” or even “Medical Professionals”?

And what does burning alive and butchering a prenatal or neonatal baby have to do with “reproductive health”, or health of *ANY* kind, for that matter?

These people are *INSANE*!

When I read Orwell’s “1984”, it was for entertainment, not as an instruction manual.

I use 1984, Brave New World, and Atlas Shrugged among others as barometers to let me know when the storm is almost upon us, kind of like my arthritic knee.

I wonder why there isn't an American Exterminator's Association that these death doctors could belong to and get a get a stamp of approval. That way they could advertise. No referrals required. Just look them up in the yellow pages.

Put up a billboard, "Babies and Old People Killed Here!"

Their reasoning is totally illogical.

refuse to treat a drug user for his drug-induced heart attack

deny a blood transfusion to a woman who lost blood in a fight

Has there ever been a recorded instance of either of these happening? I can't think of any religious or moral principle that would justify this, even from the most far out there religious cult.

turn away a women seeking birth control at a clinic that provides such services just because the employee thinks premarital sex is wrong?

That's not the reason people refuse to hand out birth control. It is because they believe birth control itself is wrong.

Of course, this all dances around the core issue: abortion.

“I think humanism is mutating into an explicit and misanthropic anti-humanism.”

This is the key sentence and one that should be examined in depth, because we can see the evolution of the idea, which sheds some interesting lights on it.

Let’s start with Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who rates right behind Hippocrates for his importance to medical ethics. A brilliant doctor and scientist, he is ostracized from the scientific and medical community for what, exactly? Because he rejects a religious or spiritual limit on medical and scientific research.

To doctors and scientists today, he is not an anti-hero by these actions, but a hero. Today this ethical corruption is seen not just in questioning if research is unethical—but engaging in research in the *hope* that it is unethical.

Frankenstein utterly rejects the natural, in favor of the synthetic and unnatural. Because in the final analysis, every ill that flesh is heir to, even death, is natural. So how else to overcome them then with either a “miracle drug” or “deux ex machina” (God from a machine.)

But so far, in medicine and science, nature still imposes itself, despite our best medical and scientific efforts to abolish it. And this leads to the counter-argument: that man is sickly and often dies precisely *because* of the synthetic and unnatural.

This is the hyper-environmentalist approach to things. That it is better for children to wallow in filth, because they will develop a strong immune system, and sickness and death have a purpose and a reason, so should be allowed to progress naturally.

So between these guys and Dr. Frankenstein, there is not just ethical relativism, but a general rejection of ethics, to varying degrees from avoiding ethical problems, such as medical referrals to the less ethical; to forcing each other to be less ethical; to being proudly unethical, and even searching out unethical research on purpose.

And, of course, there are still doctors and scientists who retain ethical standards. But for the most part, medical and scientific ethics are in shambles.

The comparisons are flawed. The examples used by the two "doctors" above are life-threatening needs created by choices. But someone's life is in danger. The medical action is to save a life. An abortion isn't (for a great percentage of the time) a medical need. It is not done to save a life either, as the examples were. It is done to take a life.

The difference between the examples given and abortion is life and death.

For example, we cannot refuse to treat a drug user for his drug-induced heart attack just because we are morally opposed to drug use.

That is an idiotic and false analogy.

Neither I nor the local surgeon participate in abortions because of our moral convictions. We have have, however, been involved in cleaning up the complications (retained products of conception, infections, etc.) left behind by the abortionists on more patients than I can remember.

That is TOTALLY different than taking a direct and active part in the abortion process itself before the fact.

A true analogy of the "drug user" hypothetical would be to claim that doctors that refuse to supply drug-seekers with drugs be required to refer the drug-seekers to doctors that are willing to supply them with drugs.

The ACOG would have us check out the local abortionists before hanging our shingle. Prolife docs would only be allowed to care for men and post-menopausal women.

(as a btw, Wesley knows how few docs have taken any sort of oath - much less the Hippocratic Oath. Nevertheless, the other side would have you trust us, as long as we don’t have a conscience.)

What they did is set up several straw men in hopes of camouflaging the inherent evil, that is abortion. Abortion has little to do with medicine other than in some very rare cases in which life of the mother is to be considered. There are very few physicians that I know that will not Rx contraceptives. They can be harmful, especially if you smoke or carry the HERS ll gene, for example, but I think that is their choice as the risk they accept is their own.

These “editorials” sound like quietly placed strawmen in the leftwing’s coming campaign to inure the public to the moral implications of FOCA

I’d like these people to clearly define exactly how an abortion is upholding the oath they take to preserve life. We all know that pregnancy can of course have complications and the mother is at risk in some cases but the vast majority that go to full term do NOT lead to harm for the mother and if the mother is at risk of harm there are solutions/treatments that can help them and not harm the child as well.

It’s insanity to me to claim that abortion somehow upholds the oath to protect the life in the mother’s womb, because after all if the mom takes drugs/drinks profusely can they not be charged with a crime? I think so but perhaps I’m wrong, but I know for sure that is a drunk driver kills a pregnant mother the driver WILL be charged with two counts of whatever the charge is...odd, eh, since the unborn is not “really” alive in the minds of so many who support abortion....They really should not be able to have it both ways and the ONLY way the unborn should be treated is as if they were out of the womb.

Pray for the end of most massive assault on live ever, legalized abortion.

We all know that pregnancy can of course have complications and the mother is at risk in some cases but the vast majority that go to full term do NOT lead to harm for the mother and if the mother is at risk of harm there are solutions/treatments that can help them and not harm the child as well.

In nearly ALL cases where the mother's life is at risk the baby is already dead. The reality is that "rape, incest and mother's life" cases make up LESS THAN 1% of abortions.

Great point and one I am not versed on...bottomline abortion is the most uncivilized thing ever to be done...

I cannot imagine the guilt most women go through after seeing little children after doing that. I struggle now with seeing little children after our miscarriage which was crushing for my wife and me.

I believe that nearly ALL women who abort will eventually become overcome by the guilt and beg God's forgiveness.

I posted this thread yesterday that shows that 80% of women considering abortion will decide to let their babies live after seeing an ultrasound.

Knights of Columbus Program Helps First Crisis Pregnancy Center get Ultrasound

And Obama will say ‘can’t have our doctors put undue influence on the woman or provide her with facts and information about what is about to be done, what it means and how it may (and almost certainly will) affect their mental and emotional health after the procedure....

All in the name of “reproductive rights” whatever that means...ugh...it just makes me so disgusted...

If you were to ask someone who speaks English, but is clueless about abortion what “reproductive rights” means, they would almost certainly say that it is the RIGHT TO REPRODUCE — NOTHING about that term would lead someone to conclude that it referred to a “right” to kill babies.