The Doctor Is In

I must confess to having had some misgivings about the uproar over Section 1233 of the proposed health care reform bill HR 3200. This section pertains to government payment for counseling on end-of-life options under Obamacare. From Sarah Palin’s ‘death panels” to an endless host of hyperbolic rhetoric about how this counseling is “mandatory” (it’s […]

Several weeks ago, Washington State logged a solitary but grim statistic: the first assisted suicide under a new law enacted by initiative last November. It seems fitting, therefore, to re-post the following essay, written some five years ago, occasioned by the decision in the Netherlands to legalize euthanasia for children. It is, I fear, a […]

In a previous post on physician-assisted suicide, I had the following exchange with a commenter named Van:
Van:
I take it you are are against assisted-suicide?
Let me ask you this - how can we say we live in a free nation if we cannot do what we wish to our own bodies, as long as we […]

I hope to have more to say on the issue of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the near future. In the meantime, I highly recommend this article by Herbert Hendin, M.D. Dr. Hendin’s book, Seduced by Death: Doctors, Patients, and Assisted Suicide, is an excellent resource on the topic, the result of extensive research and […]

Often in the sturm und drang of a world gone mad, there comes, through the chaos and insanity, some brief moment of clarity. Such times pass by quickly, and are quickly forgotten — as this brief instance might have been, courtesy of my neighboring bellweather state of Oregon: (HT: Hot Air)
Last month her lung cancer, […]

As many have heard, the grand jury in New Orleans declined to bring charges against the physician, Anna Pou, and two nurses, arrested and charged with euthanizing patients at Memorial Hospital in the days following Katrina.
In New Orleans and elsewhere, many — including numerous physicians and the AMA — sighed in relief, hoping to put […]

My previous post, an update on the investigation into deaths at Memorial Hospital during hurricane Katrina, elicited this comment from a reader, Carla:
It was not the district attorney who had these people arrested. It was attorney general of the State, Charles Foti, who had them arrested despite that they were not charged. He made a […]

Lost in the dustbin of inconvenient memories, left behind in the light-speed pace of internet information mania is the story of the deaths of patients at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. A physician and two nurses were arrested after the Louisiana District Attorney charged them with murder, accusing them […]