And this excerpt from a great article. Link is below text.
The Nazi Doctors was published in 1986 by Basic Books. He's written a number of books. He says in the introduction of the book, "My goal in this study is to uncover psychological conditions conducive to evil." (p. 12) Then he says a couple of pages later, "My argument in this study is that the medicalization of killing--the imagery of killing in the name of healing--was crucial to that terrible step. At the heart of the Nazi enterprise, then, is the destruction of the boundary between healing and killing." (p. 14) Now this quote needs to be repeated. Here is his main thesis after all of this study from 1979 to 1986, seven years of traveling all over the world interviewing doctors that were part of the process and also those who were victims of the process. His goal is to show the psychological conditions that are conducive to evil. His thesis is that "the medicalization of killing--the imagery of killing in the name of healing--was crucial to that terrible step. At the heart of the Nazi enterprise, then, is the destruction of the boundary between healing and killing." He calls it " killing as a therapeutic imperative ." [Emphasis in the original] (p. 15) He then goes on to say that "This reversal of healing and killing became an organizing principle of the work, and I came to suspect the relevance of that reversal for other genocidal projects." (p. xii-xiii) Right at the heart was a reversal of killing as killing, to killing as healing.
Now on February 14, 1992 I watched "20/20" on ABC. Dr. Kervorkian was being interviewed. Dr. Kervorkian, "Dr. Death", "Jack the Dripper", you know who he is. When he was asked about why he did this he made this very telling comment. He said, "A doctor is a servant and I'm here to serve the needs of the patient." What's curious about this remark is that traditionally doctors have been healers, care-givers. Their role has been defined in terms of giving life to their patients. When patient's needs were considered, the chief need of the patient was to stay alive. When a doctor says do what I tell you. I'm concerned with your needs. What he's saying is do what I'm telling you because I'm trying to keep you alive and that which I direct you to do will promote health. Doctors are there to keep people alive, to give care, to promote health. "Needs" used to mean saving their life. Dr. Kervorkian says that meeting a patient's needs is killing them. Dr. Kervorkian is saying that sometimes, using Robert Lifton's words, sometimes killing is a therapeutic imperative. Dr. Kervorkian has redefined what the role of doctors and the role they play in our society.
To put it simply, Lifton's goal was to discover what psychological changes or ways of thinking would ultimately result in indescribable evil. His answer was that one of the things that could cause that was turning to killing as a therapeutic imperative, thus erasing the distinction between healing and killing.
If one is encouraged, Lifton argues, to see killing as healing of any kind, whether it be a type of individual healing, a type of social healing, or a type of cultural cleansing, then you are on the threshold of indescribable evil.
Furthermore, this evil has the capability of incredibly sublime rationalization. Lifton notes the recollection of survivor physician Dr. Ella Lingens-Reiner, who pointed to the chimneys in the distance and asked a Nazi doctor, Fritz Klein, "How can you reconcile that with your Hippocratic Oath as a doctor?" He answered, "Of course, I am a doctor and I want to preserve life. And out of respect for human life, I would remove a gangrenous appendix from a diseased body. The Jew is the gangrenous appendix in the body of mankind." (p. 16)
Listen very carefully to what this man has said. He said that he killed Jews out of respect for human life. The tragic thing is that he really believed that he was respecting life by killing Jews. Tell me, how is that different from the rhetoric of the euthanasia issue now? We kill out of so-called respect for life.
It's no accident that the medical profession played a crucial role then and is playing a crucial role now in this shift, in this rationalization, in this destruction of the boundary between killing and healing. Doctors were the obvious choice of a profession to use to propel this transition of thinking from killing as killing, to killing as healing. Lifton notes, "It is they who work at the border of life and death, who are most associated with the awesome, death-defying, and sometimes death-dealing aura of the primitive shaman and medicine man. As bearers of this shamanistic legacy and contemporary practitioners of mysterious healing arts, it is they [the doctors] who are likely to be called upon to become biological activists." (p. 17) So even in our culture we are using doctors and the "aura of this shamanistic legacy, these awesome death-defying, and sometimes death-dealing" individuals. We are using them as biological activists.
One last observation about this whole process. Lifton identifies the sequence that led to this shift in thinking about human beings. The sequence has five steps:
coercive sterilization
killing "impaired" children
killing "impaired" adults
killing "impaired" inmates of concentration camps [notice how the numbers of people qualifying for death is broadening]
mass extermination, mostly of Jews
Lifton observes that "sterilization doctrine...set the tone for the regime's medicalized approach to 'life unworthy of life.'" (p. 25)
Now I don't believe that we are following the same sequence that he identifies here because coercive sterilization does not happen in this country. Some of you may be saying that if I'm suggesting a slippery slope to the same kind of thing, logically thinking the mass extermination of people here, then why aren't we seeing that same sequence of events happening in our culture? My point is we are in fact seeing that, but we don't see it being initiated by coercive sterilization.
Lifton's point was that sterilization was a practice that set the tone for the medical approach to dealing with life that is considered unworthy of life. We don't have sterilization here, but we have something else that fits the bill, that was the first step of this whole series of events that we see in process right now. It wasn't sterilization in our country, it was abortion.
Abortion seems to fulfill the same function as coercive sterilization did but for slightly different reasons. Just as sterilization was viewed as a healing act, abortions are considered "therapeutic." Abortion is different in that it is not meant to cull out the genetically undesirable, but rather the merely unwanted. Even so, both seem to be the first step that lay the philosophic foundation for the steps that follow. For the Nazis, it was sterilization that was the first step that led to killing impaired children and then killing impaired adults. In our culture, abortion has served that function because clearly since 1973 we have moved towards the unofficial, though widespread, killing of impaired children and now the attempt to legalize the killing of impaired adults, though unofficially that is going on (Dr. Death).
http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/euthanasia/thenazid.htmYour post 5082: "ADOLF HITLER Berlin, 1 September 1939
Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. med. Brandt are instructed to broaden the powers of physicians designated by name, who will decide whether those who have - as far as can be humanly determined - incurable illnesses can, after the most careful evaluation, be granted a mercy death. /signed/ Adolf Hitler"
only partially reflects its' original introduction to this thread by Deo volente in her post 4630:
"After posting my attempt at satire, post # 4628, I felt a little guilt, in implying any similarity between Jeb and you-know-who. After all, it's a favorite ploy of the President's liberal detractors to make this wicked comparison. So, to atone, I did a quick search with the help of my research assistant, Mr. Google. And this jumped right out at me. Took my breath away, in fact.
"Berlin, 1 Sept. 1939
Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Med. Brandt are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the competence of certain physicians, designated by name, so that patients who, on the basis of human judgment, are considered incurable, can be granted mercy death after a discerning diagnosis.
A. Hitler
http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/NWCHE/journal/disabled.html "
Her post provides a complete quote, and is even more telling in that she provided FReepers with the source of her research.
A reading of that link makes you wonder how much of the evil promulgated by Hitler was transferred to the United States. It is a matter of fact that an army of scientists and medical researcher found a new home in America courtesy of the federal government.
One might reasonably ask if America is continuing Hitler's Master Plan.
Who won WWII???