Posted on 06/09/2006 10:46:57 AM PDT by EnigmaticAnomaly
DOCTORS should be allowed to help to kill terminally ill patients with or without their consent, a leading professor of medical ethics said yesterday.
Emeritus Professor Len Doyal said that doctor-assisted deaths were already taking place in Britain on a “regular and recurring basis” and needed to be better regulated.
He said that many doctors took part in a form of euthanasia by withdrawing essential treatment to “alleviate suffering”.
Writing in the Royal Society of Medicine journal Clinical Ethics, Professor Doyal said: “When doctors withdraw life-sustaining treatment, such as feeding tubes from severely incompetent patients, it should morally be recognised for what it is — euthanasia where death is foreseen with certainty.
“Doctors may not want to admit this and couch their decision in terms such as ‘alleviating suffering’ but withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from severely incompetent patients is morally equivalent to active euthanasia.”
Professor Doyal, who is Professor of Medical Ethics at Queen Mary, University of London and has been a member of the medical ethics committee of the British Medical Association for nine years, added: “If doctors can already choose not to keep uncomprehending patients alive because they believe that life is of no further benefit to them, why should their death be needlessly prolonged? “It is ironic that much of the debate about euthanasia has been so focused on competent patients. Withdrawing feeding tubes, ventilators or antibiotics from incompetent patients may result in a slow, painful and incomprehensible death that could be avoided through the legalisation of non-voluntary active euthanasia.”
Professor Doyal also criticised Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying Bill — which would make it legal to prescribe drugs that a terminally ill person could take to end their life — for not going far enough.
Lord Joffe, a former human rights lawyer and a former chairman of Oxfam, estimated that 650 people would use the medication every year. However, Anglican and Catholic leaders have spoken out against voluntary euthanasia.
Referring specifically to the Joffe Bill, Professor Doyal claimed: “Some supporters of euthanasia remain silent about non-voluntary euthanasia, presumably because they believe that focusing on voluntary euthanasia offers a better chance of legalisation.
“Yet, in doing so, they ignore important arguments for their own position.
“If doctors are now allowed control and should be able to exert even more control over the deaths of severely incompetent patients, why should competent patients not be able to control the circumstances of their own deaths if this is what they wish? “Proponents of voluntary euthanasia should support non-voluntary euthanasia under appropriate circumstances and with proper regulation.”
But soldiers need everything in triplicate before they can squeeze the trigger.
Welcome to Bizarro World!
heck, they do that NOW!.........
If doctors can do it with or without consent, what do you need to regulate?
Seems like a politicans looking to expand the government.
This guy is an "ethics expert"? Sounds more like a psychopath to me.
Sure kill them if they want to live or die... Sounds like logical murder... Genocide of the undesireables right... why how about after a mother has a child and she thinks the child will not turn out to be a good member of society well she should just be allowed to kill IT and act like it Never existed/////
LIBERALS ARE THE PARTY OF DEATH IN AMERICA>
This guy is an ethics expert like Adolph Hitler was a human rights expert.
Reminds you of a certain party in Germany about 60 years ago, doesn't it.
I long ago came to the conclusion that "ethics" are morals for people that don't have any.
This is just where the slippery slope is leading.
seems as though we have learned NOTHING from the past and, thusly, are doomed to repeat the oversights and failures associated with this ignorance...
The doctor will see you now, professor.
Yep and besides there is probably a huge profitability in this... Plus the liberals will get medicare to pay for it and save the Social Security... Fuzzy liberal math...
Exactly. Liberals wonder why Conservatives fight them on the baby steps, but I don't think they realize where those baby steps lead. First, you're allowing terminally ill patients to end their own life and suddenly you're making it legal AND moral to kill non-consenting patients. This article gave me the chills.
Like I said yesterday, killing for fun and profit. These people are dangerous and should be locked away.
That's what went through my mind, ethics expert? What's ethical about this?
Look at the modern version of the Hippocratic Oath:
"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."
That's exactly what this expert is asking doctors to do. Play God.
I agree. How does "life in prison" sound?
How is it these "ethical experts" are all on the wrong side?
It's classic Orwellian double-speak. Everything is the opposite of what it seems to be.
The doctors can start with this guy.
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