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Medical Ethicists Thinking

Submitted by Roanman on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 06:39

 

From The Telegraph.UK

 

Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say

By Medical Correspondent

 

Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued.

 

 

The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.

The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article's authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.

The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”

Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.

 

I'm guessing these are the same experts you're gonna get to talk to about your personal health care pretty soon.

 

OK, OK We'll Post It.

Submitted by Roanman on Wed, 02/16/2011 - 12:00

 

All morning long, I kept getting the same email, with the same link, over and over again.

Nearly every one of the minions who take The Wall Street Journal online, knowing that I enjoy James Taranto's ongoing taunt of the New York Times and their star columnist Paul Krugman, felt compelled to give me a heads up on this morning's Best of the Web column at WSJ.com.

As though I hadn't already been up and skulking my favorite sites for hours.

I suppose it would be ungracious (ingracious?) one of those for sure ... maybe both, not to thank each and every one of you for thinking about our site.

And because it seems very important to you that we spread the word on this issue, and more importantly, because I was going to do it anyway, here we go.

First, from Taranto's post linking to the original article at The Telegraph

 

Great Moments in Socialized Medicine 
First the bad news. "The National Health Service is today condemned over its inhumane treatment of elderly patients in an official report that finds hospitals are failing to meet 'even the most basic standards of care' for the over-65s," ...
 

Now the good news: "In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false," according to Paul Krugman, star columnist at the New York Times.

Oops, but there's more bad news: The New York Times has been known to publish out-and-out falsehoods on its opinion pages, including under Krugman's byline.

Good news: This could be one of those instances in which he's telling the truth. Bad news: We wouldn't bet on it.

 

Now the full story.

As always, the photo links to the entire peice.

Recommended

 

NHS shamed over callous treatment of elderly

The National Health Service is today condemned over its inhumane treatment of elderly patients in an official report that finds hospitals are failing to meet “even the most basic standards of care” for the over-65s.

By Martin Beckford, Health Correspondent 

A study of pensioners who suffered appalling treatment at the hands of doctors and nurses say that half were not given enough to eat or drink.  One family member said the maltreatment amounted to "euthanasia".

Some were left unwashed or in soiled clothes, while others were forgotten after being sent home or given the wrong medication.

In several cases considered by the Health Service Ombudsman, patients died without loved ones by their sides because of the “casual indifference” of staff and their “bewildering disregard” for people’s needs.

The damning report warns that extra money will not help the NHS meet required standards of care and that more problems are likely as the population ages.

Ann Abraham, who as health ombudsman carries out independent investigation of complaints against the health service, said: “The findings of my investigations reveal an attitude – both personal and institutional – which fails to recognise the humanity and individuality of the people concerned and to respond to them with sensitivity, compassion and professionalism.

 

But no death panels.

 

It's On!!!!!

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 03/25/2010 - 12:36

Social Security? I believe I have isolated the problem

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 03/20/2010 - 16:28

 

Ok, in the first chart below, we see the ratio of workers to beneficiaries go from 41.9 to 3.3.

Then, in the table further below, we see the tax rate move from 2% to 15.3%.

Hmmmmmmm .............

 

To quote Robert Reich

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 15:35

 

I will actually give you a speech made up entirely--almost at the spur of the moment, of what a candidate for president would say if that candidate did not care about becoming president.
 
In other words, this is what the truth is, and a candidate will never say, but what candidates should say if we were in a kind of democracy where citizens were honored in terms of their practice of citizenship, and they were educated in terms of what the issues were, and they could separate myth from reality in terms of what candidates would tell them:
 
"Thank you so much for coming this afternoon. I'm so glad to see you, and I would like to be president.
 
Let me tell you a few things on health care.
 
Look, we have the only health-care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. [laughter] That's true, and what I'm going to do is I am going to try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people.
 
But that means you--particularly you young people, particularly you young, healthy people--you're going to have to pay more. [applause] Thank you.
 
"And by the way, we are going to have to--if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive, so we're going to let you die. [applause]
 
"Also, I'm going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid--we already have a lot of bargaining leverage--to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs.
 
But that means less innovation, and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market, which means you are probably not going to live that much longer than your parents. [applause]
 
Thank you."

 

To Quote Unknown

Submitted by Roanman on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 06:54

 

 

Obama's health care plan will be written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it, and whose members are exempts from it, signed by a president who smokes in secret, funded by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that is broke.

 

 

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