Catholic Ping - Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Posted on 01/18/2006 7:34:52 AM PST by NYer
London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new survey finds British doctors used euthanasia to kill nearly 3,000 patients in 2004. The poll also found that British doctors do not want to see the legalization of assisted suicide despite a campaign to do that.
Brunel University surveyed 857 doctors and found that thousands of deaths in 2004 were the result of illegal euthanasia.
According to a BBC report, the survey found that, of the 584,791 deaths in the UK in 2004, 936 were by voluntary euthanasia and 1,930 involved the doctor killing the patient without the patient's consent.
Of the euthanasia deaths, one-third of them were the result of doctors treating the symptoms of a disease or injury and just under a third involved doctors withholding treatment in cases when it is supposedly in the best interest of the patient.
Both of those courses of action are legal in Britain, the BBC reported.
None of the doctors in the poll said they had been involved in an assisted suicide and just 2.6 percent of the physicians surveyed said it would be beneficial to change the law to allow it.
Discussing the report, Professor Clive Seale told the BBC, "Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are understandably very emotive subjects, but this work shows that UK doctors are less willing to take such actions than in several other countries."
In November lawmakers in the House of Lords introduced a private members bill to legalize assisted suicide. Pro-life groups have strenuously fought the bill and were successful in getting a provision allowing voluntary euthanasia to be removed from it.
Groups backing euthanasia said the report shows some doctors are engaging in the practice and that it should be legalized, but pro-life advocates disagreed.
Julia Millington, political director of the ProLife Alliance, told the BBC, "Surely the response of a civilized society is to stop this unlawful killing altogether rather than use such research to support demands for doctors to be permitted to do it legally."
A doctor associated with the British Medical Association also worried about the number of doctors engaging in euthanasia.
Catholic Ping - Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Ohhhhhh. Euthanasia. That's different. Nevermind.
"...and 1,930 involved the doctor killing the patient without the patient's consent."
Hippocratic Oath -- Modern Version
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.
***Above all, I must not play at God.***
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.
Ray Allen , worn out ,half blind executed for killing 4 people. It took over 20 years to get rid of this POS , Oh, Thats horribl, but its ok to deny care "in the best interest of the patient.
A little hard to understand their logic.
This is ONLY about getting rid of useless expensive people.
"1,930 involved the doctor killing the patient without the patient's consent"
I believe thats called: MURDER.
Good for 'em.
Doctors in this country have been doing it for years, too. I hope if I am suffering and have no chance for recovery that someone cares enough to slip me some extra morphine.
parsy, who don't want to linger in agony.
Look at the bright side, the legalization of assisted suicide will help eliminate liberals, even though the democrats will still have them voting from the grave.
"...1,930 involved the doctor killing the patient without the patient's consent."
I call that murder.
I am suspicious of the statement that, "1,930 involved the doctor killing the patient without the patient's consent." What does that mean exactly? Does that include people who were brain dead or otherwise incapacitated and their family members authorized euthenasia? This article is obviously from one side of the issue and that statement seems worded in a very particular way.
I can tell you that I, my wife and virtually all of our family members on both sides would prefer an easy death over living a fruitless existence in a drug induced coma.
I agree with you, but get ready for the flames from the FR busybodies!
I can take the heat.
parsy, who wears flame-resistant aluminum foil in his hat.
compare that to the older verison:
I swear by God, to keep according to my ability and my judgement, the following Oath.
"To consider dear to me as my parents him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and if necessary to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art if they so desire without fee or written promise; to impart to my sons and the sons of the master who taught me and the disciples who have enrolled themselves and have agreed to the rules of the profession, but to these alone the precepts and the instruction.
I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.
To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.
Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion.
But I will preserve the purity of my life and my art.
I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.
In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.
All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.
If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot."
You think it is a good thing to euthanize someone without their consent?
Why use doctors? Killing patients is not their calling, but healing. Why not just use undertakers....more up their alley and it's more efficient.
i.e. Living Wills can just specify "...and when I reach my 70th birthday, Slippery Slopes Mortuary will come and take me away and...."
I would understand if they were British dentists, but not doctors.
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