[Federalist 78]

Death as Deliverance: Euthanatic Thinking in Germany ca. 1890-1933

(1) the beginnings of scientific and medical depravity are small, marked by subtle shifts in the way personhood is defined and law is defined; (2) given the fact that scientific "progress" invariably outpaces our ability to reflect ethically on that progress, it is critical that the church not remain silent in the face of present or potential evil.

Indeed it would appear, as authors as diverse as Alexander Mitscherlich, Robert Jay Lifton, Michael Burleigh, and Wesley Smith have documented, that the path to medical evil was prepared "long before Nazism was even a cloud on the German horizon." One of the tragic legacies of social Darwinism, rooted in the presupposition of biological determinism, is that it assisted in giving justification—frequently couched in the language of "compassion"—to the elimination of lebensunwertes Leben, life that is unworthy of living, or, in the language of Darwinists, life that is simply unfit.

In addition to the ascendancy of biological determinism, an important step in legitimizing the killing of the weak, the infirm, the terminally ill, and the incompetent was the shift in ethos among medical doctors and psychiatrists several decades prior to WWII. Historian Robert Proctor has argued persuasively that the Nazi experiment was rooted in pre-1933 thinking about the essence of personhood, racial hygienics and survival economics and that physicians were instrumental both in pioneering research and in carrying out this program. In fact, Proctor is adamant that scientists and physicians were pioneers and not pawns in this process. By 1933, however, when political power was consolidated by National Socialists, resistance within the medical community was too late. Proctor notes, for example, that most of the fifteen-odd journals devoted to racial hygienics were established long before the rise of National Socialism.

Few accounts of this period are more thoroughly researched than Michael Burleigh’s Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany ca. 1900-1945. Particularly important is Burleigh’s discussion of psychiatric reform and medical utilitarianism during the Weimar period. During the years of WWI, it is estimated that over 140,000 people died in German psychiatric asylums . This would suggest that about 30% of the entire pre-war asylum population died as a result of hunger, disease or neglect. Following the war, evidence indicates that a shift in the moral climate had begun. In the Spring of 1920, the chairman of the German Psychiatric Association, Karl Bonhoeffer, testified before Association members at the GPA annual meeting that "we have witnessed a change in the concept of humanity"; moreover, in emphasizing the right of the healthy to stay alive, which is an inevitable result of periods of necessity, there is also a danger of going too far: a danger that the self-sacrificing subordination of the strong to the needs of the helpless and ill, which lies at the heart of any true concern for the sick, will give ground to the demand of the healthy to live.

Already in the 1890s, the traditional view of medicine that physicians are not to harm but to cure was being questioned in some corners by a "right-to-die" ethos. Voluntary euthanasia was supported by a concept of negative human worth—i.e., the combined notion that suffering negates human worth and the incurably ill and mentally defective place an enormous burden on families and surrounding communities. It is at this time that the expression "life unworthy of being lived" seems to have emerged and was the subject of heated debate by the time WWI had ended.

One notable "early" proponent of involuntary euthanasia was influential biologist and Darwinian social theorist Ernst Haeckel. In 1899 Haeckel published The Riddle of the Universe, which became one of the most widely read science books of the era. One of several influential voices contending for the utility of euthanasia, Haeckel combined the notion of euthanasia as an act of mercy with economic concerns that considerable money might thereby be saved.

Further justification for euthanasia in the pre-WWI era was provided by people such as social theorist Adolf Jost and Nobel-Prize-winning chemist Wilhelm Ostwald. According to Ostwald, "in all circumstances suffering represents a restriction upon, and diminution of, the individual and capacity to perform in society of the person suffering." In his 1895 book Das Recht auf den Tod ("The Right to Death"), Jost set forth the argument–-an argument almost forty years in advance of Nazi prescriptions–-that the "right" to kill existed in the context of the higher rights possessed by the state, since all individuals belong to the social organism of the state. Furthermore, this was couched in terms of "compassion" and "relief" from one’s suffering. Finally, the right to kill compassionately was predicated on biology, in accordance with the spirit of the age: the state must ensure that the social organism remains fit and healthy.

Putting Euthanasia in Perspective: The Preparation of an Idea In 1933, with the accession of the National Socialists to power, two developments that had reached their critical mass were promptly codified into law. One was the long-discussed sterilization program, which had been debated but had not achieved majority support. The second was authorized euthanasia. The proposal, issued by the German Ministry of Justice, was reported on the front page of The New York Times and stated:

"It shall be made possible for physicians to end the tortures of incurable patients, upon request, in the interests of true humanity." Moreover, the Ministry ensured, "no life still valuable to the state will be wantonly destroyed."

Andrew C. Ivy, M.D., asked in 1946 by the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association to serve as a consultant at the Nuremberg trial of Nazi physicians who had been indicted for "crimes against humanity," reflected on his difficult experience with the following observation:

It was inconceivable that a group of men trained in medicine and in official positions of power in German governmental circles could ignore the ethical principles of medicine and the unwritten law that a doctor should be nearer humanity than other men… [W]e had assumed that the sacred aspects of medicine and its ethics would certainly remain inviolate.

Although, according to Ivy, "fewer than two hundred German physicians participated directly in the medical war crimes," it became clear to Ivy that these atrocities were only "the end result" of the "complete encroachment on the ethics and freedom of medicine" by those in positions of influence.

Lacking any strong commitment to the sanctity of life, utilitarian ethicists and practitioners adopt a "quality-of-life" ethic. The inevitable question that follows is this: At what point does an individual no longer have a "quality of life" that is "worthy of life" itself? With justification bioethicist Leon Kass has warned: "There is the very real danger that what constitutes a ‘meaningful life’ among the intellectual elite will be imposed on the people as the only standard by which the value of human life is measured."

Historian Robert Proctor has argued that the primary impetus for forcible euthanasia in the 1930s was economic; assisted death was justified as a kind of "preemptive triage" to free up beds. Persons who were considered a burden on German society included handicapped infants, the mentally ill, the terminally ill, the comatose, and the criminal element. By 1941, euthanasia had become part of normal hospital routine. This disposal or "disinfection" of human lives, however, was to be done "humanely and economically." But let it be emphasized that most of the people advocating assisted death at this time were, relatively speaking, ordinary, good, hard-working and loyal people who, surely, thought of themselves as engaged in the service of mankind through a philosophically-neutral practice of science and medicine.

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Though this article is 1 year old, it's admonition to us all this very week regarding the tragic situation with Terri Schivo must be taken to heart: "...the wedding of democratic pluralism and moral relativism constitutes a thinly-veiled totalitarianism. Indeed, the historical record would seem to vindicate the pontiff: the century immediately behind us constitutes a sobering reminder that freedom is capable of annihilating itself; this occurs when human freedom is no longer tethered to moral principle." posted on 10/20/2003 11:45:12 PM CDT by cpforlife.org

Writing in 1989, the late Cardinal John O’Connor of New York City, an ardent pro-life advocate, predicted that euthanasia would "dwarf the abortion phenomenon in magnitude, in numbers, in horror." When one considers the sheer number of abortions that are performed each year and that have been performed over the last two decades, this statement borders on fantastic. But Cardinal O’Connor’s are not the words of someone given to exaggeration. While there is nothing inevitable about human predictions, O’Connor’s words are haunting. What is it that can hinder this "prophecy" from coming to pass? posted on 10/20/2003 11:47:32 PM CDT by cpforlife.org (The Missing Key of the Pro-Life Movement is at www.CpForLife.org)

I've seen this coming for years in America. I fear the babyboomers are in particular danger, because the youngest generation of today will not want to pay for the retirement/illness of the oldest generation when social security becomes unsustainable. They will not have had the moral teaching/moral belief which might give them any qualms at all about holding back from this "solution" to their problems. posted on 10/21/2003 2:22:31 AM CDT by tinamina

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[Federalist 78]

Jaffree v. Bd of School Comm., 554 F. Supp. 1104 (1983)

We must give no future generation an excuse to use this same tactic to further their ends which they think proper under the then political climate as for instance did Adolph Hitler when he used the court system to further his goals.

 

 

[cpforlife.org]

Euthanasia and Terri Schiavo

October 16, 2003

While agonizing over the fate of Terri Schiavo, this murder of the infirm and cognitively impaired has become a mainstay of the American medical and legal establishment. At a Missouri medical center, I was given an information sheet entitled “Fluid Deprivation and the Terminally Ill” which stated, “…the decision not to provide hydration, IV fluids, and nutrition (feeding tubes, etc.), may be helpful. …As death approaches dehydration occurs naturally. Administering IV fluids to the terminally ill patient can increase urine output, often creating the need for a catheter or the frequent use of a bedpan. Administering tube feedings can result in nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. Additionally the administration of IV fluids by IV or by mouth can result in swelling of the feet and hands that contribute to the formation of pressure sores. Oral discomfort is noted to be the only known drawback to natural dehydration. Because foods and fluids have such powerful symbolic meaning, it is often very difficult for family members to decide in favor of natural dehydration for their terminally ill loved ones.”

In response to this policy I wrote the Administration, Board of Directors, and Ethics Committee the following:

Dehydration is a pathologic state or symptom of an anomaly or disease that is to be treated, not produced by withholding fluids and/or nutrition. Withholding hydration, nutrition, or any medical treatment should not be done unless death is imminent, (not terminal) and the removal of such hydration, nutrition or medical treatment should not be the etiological or causative factor in the death of that individual, but as a natural consequence of the disease state. This directive on removal of hydration from the terminally ill is paramount to passive euthanasia (murder)…This medical institution needs to eliminate its policy on the terminally ill since the word terminal has many definitions and it is too illusive or subjective to be used in policies affecting those patients in whom death is imminent. All policies affecting the medical treatment of patients whose death is imminent need to safeguard the patient and/or significant power of attorney, stating that if the patient's condition changes and death is not imminent, all hydration, nutrition and appropriate medical treatment will be reinstated. (“Imminent” defined as the approximate relation to death of a patient in an irreversible, persistent catabolic state or an irreversible respiratory or metabolic acidosis). In conclusion, no medical treatment or the withholding of medical treatment should be the etiological cause of a human being's death; the disease, anomaly, pathology or trauma should be its etiological cause.

By acting in this way the legal and medical establishment usurp the place of God in so much as they arbitrarily choose whom they will allow to live and whom they will send to their death. No doctor or lawyer can claim this right to decide on other peoples' origin or destiny. The purpose of their institutions is to safeguard the health, dignity and welfare of their patients and constituents-not to help them or any other persons to hasten their death!


Richard Mahoney
http://cpforlife.org/id108.htm

[floriduh voter]

Great thread.

[Servant of the 9]

This whole argument is bogus.

It has been common knowledge for 40 years that everyone needs a living will to control how they will be treated if they are unable to communicate.
Anyone who does not have one and enters a coma or vegetative state and has bad things happen to them suffers only from their own stupidity.

Think of it as Evolution in Action

So9

[Future Useless Eater]

Eye opening article! Remarkably thorough. I learned a lot.

Thanks!

[lainde]

This is why we have bioethics committees. But I'm sometimes horrified by what I hear from sitting members. I keep reminding them about Hitler's euthenasia program. It was his test run for the concentration camps...He was fine tuning the "life unworthy of life" abomination. But first he killed the "imperfect" children. The first child murdered was an infant named Knauer, born blind, with one leg and part of an arm missing, and described as an "idiot". Hitler ordered his personal physician, Karl Brandt to go the University of Leipzig Clinic to examine the child. He reported to Hitler that the doctors found no justification for keeping such a child alive. On returning to Berlin, Dr. Brandt formalized the two killing programs - of children and of adults (the T4 program). This information is from the "Nazi Doctors"...A chilling, but necessary read for anyone in the medical profession that wonders HOW did they do it? How does such a hellish spiral into ethical depravity begin...

[Spiff]

But death by dehydration is so much easier to do than to stuff the person back into a womb and to dismember them.

[Joe Republc]

I know several people who are generally pro-life, but get angry and adament about the need to allow the removal of the feeding tube from elderly people, esp. parents and grandparents with Alzheimers.

I don't think they understand the agony of this kind of death.

-- Joe

[Zechariah_8_13]

slippery slope ping

[MarMema]

For more than ten years, conscious and unconscious cognitively disabled people who use feeding tubes have been legally dehydrated to death in the United States. This intentional life-ending act-clamping feeding tubes and denying all sustenance-has become so ubiquitous that, generally, little attention is paid.

Guess again.

[Smokin' Joe]

The law, which should be especially vigilant in defending those who can't defend themselves, instead generally reflects the dominant view in bioethics that relative value can be placed on human lives.

How many of us in school (college) in the '70s were given either the 'lifeboat problem' or the 'kidney machine' problem where you had to decide who got to fill a limited number of spots and who died.

I was uncomfortable with the fact that rather than simply drawing straws, we were provided background data on each person and expected to decide their relative worth.

In light of social developments since, it seems safe to say we were being desensitized to performing triage on human characters.

What a short philosophical leap to the real thing.

[Ohioan from Florida]

Terri ping! If anyone would like to be added to or removed from my Terri ping list, please let me know by FReepmail!

[Ciexyz]

Prayers offered up for Terri's health, safety and comfort. St. Jude, we plead for your intervention before the throne of Almighty God.

[eccentric]

Great article, but posted only in limited places, I think it is 'preaching to the chior.' Who will hear it?

[Salvation]

BTTT!

[Salvation]

THE TERRI SCHIAVO INFORMATION PAGE

[technochick99]

bump for a later read

[djreece]

Thank you for the great article.