“As far as I can tell, you are some sort of anarchist who favors eliminating government altogether. I don’t know where you come up with this nonsense, because it isn’t Christian and it certainly isn’t conservative and Free Republic is after all a conservative and not an anarchist/libertarian forum.”
“In any event, it still seems that you have no opposition to a doctor or hospital choosing to end someone’s life based upon some arbitrary definition of futile.”
I am a Christian who understands the Scriptural mandate for government (e.g.,as set forth in Rom 13:1-10, and 1 Pet 2:13-17), and certainly not an anarchist (although I am a realist about the nature of human government and its possibilities, as set forth quite well in places like 1 Samuel 8, 1Jo 5:19, and in Augustine’s “City of God”).
You misread me when you say that I have no opposition to physicians killing their patients. On the other hand, there is a difference between killing, and refusing to continue treatments of various kinds. I think that the state should have very limited authority to require physicians or other care givers to perform services.
If we make the state the primary vehicle for paying (or permit it to exercise indirect control over payments) for medical services, however, this will extend its authority practically whether we like it or not.
Got it. You're in the "food and water is treatment" crowd and you think that a hospital should be allowed to cut someone off the same way that a bar does.
If we make the state the primary vehicle for paying (or permit it to exercise indirect control over payments) for medical services, however, this will extend its authority practically whether we like it or not.
The ONLY person here talking about this is YOU. There is no healthcare crisis in this country except the one created by the leftist liberals and libertarians. The overwhelming majority of people have private health insurance. And regardless of what anyone feels about Medicaid and Medicare, it is properly legislated law and to suggest circumventing these programs is a form of anarchy.
This law IS NOT about money, it's about whether or not a hospital has the right to kill people.