Speculating about the End of the Horror
B y:  Charles Colson

The picture could not have been more poignant. The surgeon was poised over the woman on the operating table as he performed in utero surgery. His patient, the 21-week-old baby in her womb, however, was not visible on camera. Well, not until the baby reached out his perfect little hand and grasped the finger of the doctor standing over him. For a brief moment, captured on film for the world to see, that unborn baby, little Samuel Armas, asserted his humanity in a way no one could deny.

Pictures like this, and the medical advances they herald, shatter the very foundation established to legalize the horror of abortion. That's why, as we mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade today, I am increasingly confident that Roe's days are numbered.

Dr. Joseph Bruner and his colleagues at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center are pioneers of a surgical technique to treat spina bifida. "Pioneers" because their patients, like little Samuel, have not yet been born B many are even too young to live outside their mothers' wombs.

Samuel, the baby in the photograph, was born healthy and active five weeks after his operation. Today, instead of looking forward to life as a paraplegic, he enjoys the prospect of running and playing like other kids.

These medical advances are not only miraculous, they may be the most powerful tool in the fight against abortion. You see, fetal surgery draws inescapable attention to the patients B unborn children. And that's precisely what abortion advocates have long dreaded.

In 1983, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor observed that Roe was "on a collision course with itself." Roe v. Wade, you see, grounded the right to abortion in the fact that the Court could not answer the question: When does life begin? But thanks to new scientific developments, that issue is no longer in doubt.

Technology has shown viability in increasingly younger unborn children. And not only can we detect brain waves at 5 weeks, before almost all abortions occur, we can detect and even repair birth defects.

And our laws are starting to reflect the emerging consensus that the unborn child is most certainly alive and human: convictions for child abuse of unborn babies have been upheld; new labor standards require working conditions that protect unborn children; and criminal penalties for those who injure an unborn child are becoming more frequent.

Now the pro-abortionists may attempt to find refuge in the doctrine of stare decisis, an expression of the common law tradition binding the Court to existing case law. They used this in the 1992 Casey v. Planned Parenthood decision in which the Court said that it could not upset 20 years of settled case law. After all, people depend upon it, they said.

Well, that was the rationale used to perpetuate slavery. Stare decisis is important, but it isn't sacred. New evidence and circumstances can clearly justify overturning prior decisions.

And that's why we have great cause for hope on this 27th anniversary of that abominable decision. Abortions are in decline because people are seeing abortion for what it really is. If the justices on the Court confront this evidence honestly, they too will have to recognize the life in the womb and admit that Roe must be overturned.

And if the justices are just willing to open their eyes, we have a wonderful picture to show them.

January 21, 2000 Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries

NOTE   The photo of Samuel can be seen at http://www.independent.ie/1999/302/d20a.shtml

An act to facilitate the making of legitimate medical decisions regarding life-sustaining treatments and the controlling of pain
By: L.L.deVeber, M.D. FRCP(C)

Senator Sharon Carstairs, a Liberal with a past record of strong support for the legalization of euthanasia, has introduced a bill on the withholding and withdrawing of medical treatment, which passed first reading in the Senate on October 13, 1999.

Superficially, Bill S-2 has positive points, as palliative care receives a lot of attention and would have increased funding and be more available to the general public.

However, on closer reading there are some disturbing passages, one of which would prohibit legal action for a doctor who withholds or withdraws medical treatment from a patient. There is no distinction made between terminal, dying patients and others less severely ill. Thus, in the famous case of the Down syndrome baby born with bowel obstruction, a doctor would be able to withhold surgery, let the baby die, and not be prosecuted.

Groups advocating for the disabled have made submissions expressing their fear of the bill, and, of course, those unable to speak for themselves would also be in danger. This would be the beginning of passive euthanasia on an ever-widening scale.

Another disturbing area concerns decision making for those who are incapable of making their own medical decisions and have not designated a proxy. The bill specifies that the first choice for substitute decision making would be some one appointed by the province, next a legal counsel, and last and very much the least, a member of the family. Granted, sometimes the family may not act in the best interests of the patient, but surely they should be first and not last!

This area of substitute decision making is a provincial, not a federal, matter. Therefore this section of Bill S-2 encroaches on provincial jurisdictions. Furthermore this section of the bill does not correspond with every province's statutes in this area.

The recent news that Belgium is rushing to legalize euthanasia in spite of the well-known abuses in Holland reminds us to be ever on guard!

Dr. deVeber retired in 1995 from his position as professor of pediatrics at the University of Western Ontario and director of pediatrics hematology oncology, Children's hospital of Western Ontario. He is President of the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research (formerly Human Life Research Institute) founded in 1982 for the purpose of conducting research and publication in the area of contemporary bioethics.

For more information, contact: deVeber Institute; 2057 Danforth Avenue, Suite 303; Toronto, ON M4C 1J8; (416) 693-7030 Fax (416) 693-5229

EDITOR'S NOTE: Readers are urged to express their concerns to Canadian Senators. Please contact our office for further information on Bill S-2, as well as on efforts to update the 1995 Senate Committee Report "Of Life and Death."

By:   George F. Will

The offices of L. Dennis Smith, president of the University of Nebraska, and Mike Johanns, the state's Republican governor, are less than three miles apart. Their offices are closer than their positions concerning a controversy that, thanks to rapidly evolving biological science, may soon be transcended. But when it is, we may be nostalgic for the comparative simplicity of today's moral dilemma about the use, in research and medical therapy, of cells derived from fetuses made available by elective abortions. Smith favors this. Johanns does not.

All cells in a human body contain the individual's full DNA -- the genetic code. But as the body grows from conception on, a cellular division of labor begins. Cells begin to differentiate, extinguishing, so to speak, all the DNA other than that pertinent to each cell's particular function--as blood, bone, muscle, etc. However, undifferentiated cells -- the early progenitors or ancestors of all other cells in the subsequent body -- are well-described as "biological jacks-of-all-trades." They can differentiate to form many types of cells. The scientific prognosis is that undifferentiated cells will one day be used to treat a variety of diseases (e.g., Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, HIV-induced dementia) and injuries (e.g. stroke, spinal cord injuries) by producing new tissues.

The bioethical problem is that the life-saving and life-enhancing potential of cell research can be furthered by cells harvested in ways that many consider destructive of respect for life -- ways that treat some human lives as mere means for serving the ends of other lives. The controversy over fetal cell research parallels in many ways the controversy over research using cells derived from surplus embryos produced by fertility clinics.

In an act of astonishing civic obtuseness, the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha established a relationship with an abortionist to supply aborted fetuses as sources of cells. The center even gave the abortionist an honorific association with the center, which he advertised on his Web site.

This came to the attention of the Nebraska right-to-life movement. One of the movement's sympathizers, Gov. Johanns, wants to end research using cells obtained that way.

President Smith casts the controversy as one of academic freedom: "We can't teach or do research based on what an interest group wants us to do." He says, "A public university serves all of the people and should strive to be beneficial to mankind."

However, surely a state institution has an obligation of statesmanship, a duty to display decent respect for the deeply held convictions and deeply felt aversions of a substantial portion of the taxpaying public. Catholics certainly, but by no means exclusively, reject utilitarian arguments for research that is dependent on the methodical creation of, or the deliberate interruption of, human life. It is a biological fact, not a theological postulate, that such life is a continuum from conception to death of an entity with a distinct genetic individuality.

Gov. Johanns favors fetal cell research but believes a sufficient supply of cells can be obtained from sources (e.g., spontaneous abortions, miscarriages, placental blood) that do not abrade community sensibilities. The medical center now says it will try to acquire all cells from sources other than elective abortions.

President Smith, a developmental biologist who would like a biology course to be a prerequisite for recipients of his university's baccalaureate degrees, believes that soon science will bypass this controversy. En route, it will produce many others.

In 10 to 15 years, Smith surmises, scientists will be able to take a cell from an individual's skin, de-differentiate it, and manipulate it into a source for various living tissues. In fact, last month researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston reported that undifferentiated cells from muscles of adult mice have a "remarkable capacity" to be transformed into blood cells.

This report is part of a rapidly growing body of evidence that some animal cells can differentiate into tissue types other than their tissue of origin. Dr. Margaret Goodell of the Baylor College says perhaps muscle and other cells "can be turned into heart, brain, nerve, skin or other cell types."

President Smith assumes, plausibly, that mature human cells soon will have, with an assist from science, this capacity. Certainly what seems remarkable in one decade becomes routine in the next.

A disquieting era of genetic manipulation is coming, one that may revolutionize human capacities, and notions of health. If we treat moral scruples impatiently, as inherently retrograde in a scientifically advancing civilization, we will not be in moral trim when, soon, our very humanity depends on our being in trim. 

George F. Will has been called one of the most influential writers in America. His prize-winning commentaries appear in more than 450 newspapers and biweekly in Newsweek magazine. Will serves as a contributing analyst with ABC News and has published five collections of his columns.

© Copyright 2000   The Washington Post Company  Reprinted with permission

Contact our office to receive a copy of the following:

When Do Human Beings Begin? "Scientific" Myths and Scientific Facts
by: Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D.

Hormone Contraceptives: Controversies and Clarifications  A well researched discussion of the mechanism of action of the Pill, authored by four ProLife Obstetrician-Gynecologists. Not intended to be a position statement, but worth serious perusal. Concludes that there is no evidence that hormone contraceptives include an abortifacient mechanism of action.

Is Senate Bill S-2 about Euthanasia? A Moral View of the Proposed Legislation on Withholding and Withdrawing Medical Treatment by: Peter Ryan, MA, STL

Determinants of Canadian Physicians' Opinions about Legalized Physician-Assisted Suicide: A National Survey by: T. Douglas Kinsella, CM, MD, FCPC and Marja J. Verhoef, PhD - Annals RCPSC, June 1999

Stem Cell Research: Some Pros and Cons by Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D

Who Gets. The Last Word? New Ideas about Euthanasia 1999 Canadian Physicians for Life video production, available in any quantity for $10 each copy.

By:   Martha Crean and Paul Ranalli

What child is this?

For anyone who hopes to make his or her mark before departing this world, consider the recent achievement of the unnamed fetus of the late Sophia Park, who tragically succumbed to brain death from tuberculous meningitis at age 25. This tiny human being, who lived a mere 10 weeks from conception, managed to spark a nationwide ethical debate before being declared dead last month, when an ultrasound could no longer observe a beating heart.

Once Ms. Park had been declared officially brain dead, her husband Paul Shin was informed, quite correctly, that doctors could discontinue life support for her body. Since brain death is death, there is no medical obligation to provide further care for a deceased person. The difference in this case was that her still-functioning body was the life-raft for her fetus, seen by Mr. Shin and Sophia's family as her unborn child, worthy of a chance at life. Yet the hospital also knew that a child in the womb has no legal protection in Canada, even up to full term, 40 weeks from conception.

Whatever Mr. Shin was told about the doctors' intentions, his concerns, and those of Sophia's family, eventually found their way into the media. As other family members gathered around Mr. Shin in support, some having flown in from overseas, a clear message was expressed: this baby was wanted, regardless of the chance of birth defect from the medications, x-rays and surgery Sophia received in the desperate attempt to save her life. Having lost his young wife, Mr. Shin only wanted the child in her womb to be given a chance. For a few hopeful days he got that chance, then that, too, was lost. An ultrasound revealed "the death of the child," an outcome hospital physician Dr. John Granton called "an incredible double tragedy".

In retrospect, any attempt to keep Sophia Park's body on life support for the minimum 16 weeks necessary for a reasonable chance at birth viability would be extraordinary, to be sure, but not completely lacking in precedent. In 1993, a young Oakland woman 17 weeks pregnant died of a gunshot wound to the head. Maintained on life support, she gave birth 14 weeks later to a healthy 5-pound baby. A year earlier, in a German case that also captured national attention, an 18-year-old dental assistant who was just 13 weeks pregnant suffered a severe brain injury in a car crash. Despite rapid evacuation from the scene, she was declared brain dead in hospital, but kept on life support while a committee was hastily convened. In support of her parents' expressed wishes, the committee decided that life support should be maintained until the fetus could be delivered safely by Caesarian section. As she lay surrounded by life-support machines, nurses played music, talked and massaged her body to simulate a normal pregnancy for the fetus. The efforts ended 5 weeks later when she suffered a spontaneous miscarriage.

What else did Sophia's nameless baby show us? About the split personality of modern obstetrics, where technology and skilled professionals guide one woman's unborn child toward a safe delivery, while the fetus carried by another woman just down the hall is consigned to an abortion. Many reasons are given for why abortions take place, but, with uncommon exception, there is no biological difference between the human lives within the womb of a "wanted" or "unwanted" pregnancy. How uncomfortable were some with all this fuss being made over a mere 10-week-old fetus? Did this discomfort colour anonymous comments made about the "cost" of maintaining life support in this case? Yet our intensive care units exist for patients who face daunting odds; do we object to the "cost" of caring for someone's mother after her heart attack?

And what were the repeated references, made with unwarranted certainty, about the likelihood of birth defects in Sophia's child, if not a gradual process of dehumanizing this life, a step necessary to create emotional distance before proceeding to termination? The Council of Canadians with Disabilities speaks forcefully of the hurtful effects this kind of talk has on society's respect for the disabled members of our community.

And what, finally, about "choice"? This was, after all, a wanted pregnancy. Sophia's husband and family, who were in the best position to judge what Sophia would have wanted, clearly welcomed this baby, if at all possible, even with potential birth defects. This is a story that speaks of vulnerability and strength. The strength of a parent's love and the life-force of a tiny fetus: ordinary humans buffeted by large and powerful events beyond their control. Can they count on us caring enough? And if they can't, just what kind of a community are we?

So many questions from someone so young. Even after having rejoined her mother, Sophia's baby continues to challenge us.

Martha Crean teaches English as a second language. Paul Ranalli is a Toronto neurologist and vice-president of Canadian Physicians for Life.

By: Susan Martinuk

How odd.

On Monday, a British family doctor, who was immensely popular with his patients and his community, was found guilty of murdering 15 of his patients. Dr. Harold Shipman apparently had a nasty habit of killing female patients with injections of high doses of morphine. The judge referred to his crimes as "wicked, wicked" and made much of rebuking the doctor for abusing "the trust of these victims," saying, "you were after all, their doctor."

He was their doctor.

Those are the key words that lie at the heart of this sensational murder trial -- Shipman was a doctor who took advantage of his unsuspecting patients. Both the public and the press have been all-too-eager to express their outrage at this so-called ultimate 'betrayal' of trust by a member of the medical profession.

The underlying belief in all of this is that we routinely put our trust in doctors to save lives, not take them.

But therein lies the painful irony of this indignant expression of rage. We expect medical processionals to hold to an ethic of protecting the life in their care, even as we increasingly choose to turn a blind eye to doctors who kill the sick against their will.

Sadly, it appears that our strong sense of justice is greatly diminished when the slain individual is unhealthy. Do the sick not have the same right as the healthy to expect that their doctors should help them live?

This betrayal of trust between doctor and patient has been well documented in the Netherlands, where, for two decades, the courts have declined to prosecute doctors who perform physician-assisted suicides, as long as supposedly "strict guidelines" are followed.

But a 1999 report in the Journal of Medical Ethics reported how unrealistic this expectation of regulation can be. It showed that almost 20 percent of killings occurred without the patient's request. Further, in 17 percent of these cases, alternative treatments were available. The study concluded that a "clear majority of cases of euthanasia, both with and without request, go unreported and unchecked.

Dutch claims of effective regulation ring hollow." Further, it stated that physicians were guided more by "...their own impressions of the patient's unspoken but probable wishes than by explicit oral or written requests."

In other words, once we permit the killing of patients, anything goes. As a consequence, the Netherlands now has a medical system where, according to one survey, 50-60 percent of nursing home residents are fearful of being terminated against their will by their own physicians.

For those of you who may doubt that such a scenario exists, this 1999 report actually confirms an earlier investigation, The Remmelink Report, which found that at least 1000 cases of euthanasia occur each year without the patient's request. One thousand people gave no indication that they wanted to die, but a doctor who had no fear of any legal ramifications made the choice for them. Perhaps because of frustration with treatment progress or because of a bad day at the office.

This yearly death toll makes Britain's Dr. Shipman look like a mere amateur in his demented attempts to control the life and deaths of others.

Yet where is the public indignation and outrage for these murders? Where is the judgment for abusing this sacred doctor-patient trust?

We can clearly see the results of giving doctors the right to kill. It leads to a culture of death where indignation easily dies and outrage gives over to complacency. Yet Canadians still seem content to haphazardly wander down the road that leads to giving doctors the legal power to kill.

We are willing to express outrage at a doctor who kills his patients for fun. But that's easy. The real moral test is whether we are willing to express outrage at the idea of giving doctors permission to kill the sick for fun, for profit or to protect a confused notion of "dignity." Reprinted with permission.

This column originally appeared in the Vancouver Province - February 2, 2000 Susan Martinuk is a Vancouver writer and broadcaster.

By: Sean Murphy

When the Markham-Stoufville Hospital in Ontario tried to force health care workers to assist in abortion, eight nurses stood their ground. One of them died during the five years it took for the case to reach a human rights tribunal. The hospital settled the case on the eve of the hearing, agreeing to financial compensation and a policy statement protecting rights of conscience.

For vindication of freedom of conscience, five years is too long to wait, thousands of dollars in legal fees too much to pay. It is past time to put an end to coercive conduct by employers, educational authorities and others who demand freedom of choice except for those who don't share their moral outlook.

The Protection of Conscience Project supports authentic freedom of conscientious choice for everyone. It is a non-denominational, non-profit group of individuals consisting of a project team and advisory board, operating a website at    www.consciencelaws.org

The Project

• advocates for protection of conscience legislation;

• provides information on protection of conscience legislation worldwide;

• promotes clarification and understanding of the issues involved to assist in reasoned public discussion;

• acts as a clearing house for reports from people who have been discriminated against for reasons of conscience.

The Markham-Stoufville case concerned abortion. What about euthanasia, physician assisted suicide, and demands for access to reproductive technologies? "Without proper legislation," warned Maurice Vellacott, M.P., speaking to the issue in the House of Commons," there may come a day where no physician feels free from coercion to violate his or her conscience."

For further information, contact Sean Murphy at protection@prcn.org   or 604-485-9765. This Project is supported by Canadian Physicians for Life.

By Walter L. Larimore, MD and Robert D. Orr, MD

Excerpted from "Medical Abortion Is Not Just a Medical Issue", American Family Physician, August 1997; vol 56, no. 2 . -  Reprinted with permission

Abortion has been called "the issue that will not die." FDA approval of abortifacient drugs and the publication of protocols for their use makes medical abortion a procedure that most family physicians can now consider offering to their patients as these drugs have a high rate of efficacy, only rarely have fatal side effects for the mother, and will, in all likelihood, increase the availability and incidence of abortion services and abortions.

An article on medical abortion in American Family Physician suggests two other "advantages" for medical abortion: termination of pregnancy should be possible earlier in gestation and the procedure should become more private. Although initially appealing, we feel that treating medical abortion as merely a medical procedure ignores a more important issue - the morality of abortion itself. Although physicians remain sharply divided, even polarized, about abortion, there should be agreement that abortion is not just a medical issue, or even just a legal issue. It is also a moral issue - an issue about good and bad, right and wrong.

Abortion is a moral issue because, as recognized by Planned Parenthood, "[an] abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun." Such a decision cannot be amoral. Anyone who has spent any time in an embryology text or who has seen a 6-week transvaginal sonogram of the developing baby knows that to terminate a pregnancy one has to still a heartbeat or, whatever the method, switch off a developing human brain. If it didn't, there simply would be no abortion controversy - no moral problem. But, referring to the "menses-inducing properties" of these drugs which are "toxic to trophoblastic tissue" and "cause decidual breakdown and detachment of the embryo" only perpetuates the trivialization and medicalization of this critically important moral issue - the woman's and doctor's choice to end a developing baby's life.

.There are those who agree that abortion is a moral issue, but claim that abortion is justified in particular circumstances; however, physicians and their patients should struggle mightily with attempts to justify acts which have moral implications. These should not be easy calculations. We as a society have conceptualized a "just war" and "justifiable homicide," but by adding the justifying modifiers, we all too easily convince ourselves that those acts are no longer bad. War and homicide are still bad, but they may rarely be justified, i.e., pardonable, and usually are not justifiable.

For nearly a century, Americans justified slavery in particular circumstances. Some Germans justified annihilation of certain races or religions in particular circumstances. Both were wrong. Both were bad. Both, at one time were legal in particular societies.

Naomi Wolf, a feminist thinker and writer, argues for honesty about the morality of abortion. She states that a woman's legal right to abortion is inseparable from her moral responsibility. She argues for "respect and responsibility, grief and mourning" for the woman who feels she has no alternatives and for the consequent loss of human life. She suggests that a woman who makes a decision for an abortion is "answerable to God - a God of compassion and forgiveness."

The introduction of medical abortion as a therapeutic alternative gives family physicians individually, and family medicine as a whole, an opportunity to reassess, and hopefully discuss rationally, the abortion issue. Instead of hoping the issue "will go away," or instead of continuing a discourse of division, let those on both sides of this horribly difficult issue reexamine together the morality of abortion.

President Lincoln's position on slavery could be our model: It was a position of tolerance, restriction and discouragement. Its touchstone was the common good of the institution it sought to contain. It invited argument. It was a gambit and not a gauntlet. Although not initially accepted by the "extremists" on either side of the issue, it allowed discussion that swelled into a national consensus about slavery that eventually resulted in the Supreme Court's overturning of the right to slavery and left a consensus that not only persists until today, but led to many of the civil rights reforms of the last 40 years.

Clearly the high rate of elective abortion is evidence of a social failure and is in itself a moral evil, a societal cancer. Lincoln called slavery what it was - an evil, a societal cancer. Family physicians, the only physicians in our society who care for humans from conception to cremation, from pregnancy through delivery to death, should be able to lead the discussion which leads to consensus. Therefore, when it comes to medical abortion, family physicians and their patients should not just ask "Can we do it?" or "How do we do it?" but "Should we do it? This new abortion technology does not, should not , and will not be able to avoid these significant moral issues. Family physicians must, for now, accept the legality of abortion, but they need not recognize it as morally legitimate.

The complete text and references of this paper can be obtained from our office.

Dr. Walt Larimore is a family practitioner in Florida and has faculty appointments at the Schools of Medicine at Duke University, the University of Florida and the University of South Florida. Dr. Larimore is a five-time recipient of the American Medical Association's Physician's Recognition Award.

Dr. Robert Orr is Director of Clinical Ethics and Professor of Family Practice at Loma Linda University. He has co-authored Life & Death Decisions and The Changing Face of Health Care as well as numerous articles in medical journals. Dr. Orr received the American Medical Association's 1999 Award for Leadership in Medical Ethics and Professionalism.

By: Wesley J. Smith

Assisted suicide patriarch Derek Humphry was impressed with the suicide machines unveiled in Seattle on Nov. 13, at the international "Self Deliverance New Technology Conference." He loved the demonstration on the use of helium and a garbage bag to commit suicide, a method Humphry extols in his newest how-to-end-it-all video. But he was most delighted with a new suicide contraption called "the debreather," a device developed under the aegis of John Hofsess, the Canadian assisted-suicide zealot, that is akin to a gas mask that sucks away life by removing oxygen from the air of the person wearing it.

Other assisted suicide movement notables were equally enthusiastic about the conference. Faye Girsh, the executive director of the Hemlock Society USA, called the meeting a "wonderful forum," and proclaimed herself deeply impressed by the "tremendous ingenuity" displayed by the inventors of the displayed death devices. Another notable attendee was Australian doctor Dr. Philip Nitschke -- the Down-Under Kevorkian -- who is in the midst of a North American assisted suicide promotion speaking tour. At the conference, attendees thrilled to Nitschke's description of his pet project: the still uncompleted creation of a non-narcotic death pill he calls the "Holy Grail."

As macabre and bizarre as this gathering was, it provided some badly needed truth in advertising about the assisted suicide movement. For years, assisted suicide enthusiasts have desperately attempted to reposition themselves away from the nut fringe by creating the fiction that they are promoting mainstream "medical" reform. As the conference clearly illustrated, assisted suicide isn't at all about health care or the proper treatment of illness or disability. Beneath the propaganda of compassion and the euphemisms for killing such as "aid in dying," assisted suicide is purely and simply about making people dead. Like some slow-motion suicide cult, death is the movement's overriding obsession.

If you doubt this, ask yourself these questions: Is the "debreather" a medical device that should be licensed by the government? Is helium a palliative agent? Should the cost of garbage bags used in suicide be covered by health insurance? The answers are clearly, no. Now, ask yourself this: are these approaches to ending life different in any meaningful way from swallowing prescribed poison or being injected with a lethal drug? I submit that they are not. They are merely different methods of achieving the same end -- killing. A doctor's participation in terminating life does not magically transform the act into medical treatment.

That is not to say that the status quo is acceptable. Much work must be done to improve the delivery of medical treatment and compassionate health care to seriously ill and disabled people, particularly in the areas of pain control, symptom management and independent living. But the assisted suicide movement is impeding these efforts by distracting the media from focusing on all that medicine can do to alleviate suffering and misdirecting it instead toward the more news-exploitable issue of killing. Thus, Jack Kevorkian became one of the most famous doctors in the world.

At the same time, most people don't even know who Dame Cecily Saunders is. Yet Dr. Saunders created the modern hospice movement, which through its intense focus on controlling the symptoms of dying people, is directly responsible for helping millions worldwide meet their natural ends peacefully, comfortably and with supreme dignity.

The good news is that the tide is turning against assisted suicide and toward the improved delivery of quality medical care. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the Pain Relief Promotion Act by a bipartisan 271-156 vote. If passed by the Senate and signed by President Bill Clinton, the act will improve the delivery of pain control by explicitly identifying palliation as a legitimate medical service under the Controlled Substances Act.

Moreover, several states have recently outlawed assisted suicide or added civil penalties to anyone assisting a suicide, while at the same time making it clear that aggressive palliation that leads to the unintended side effect of death is not a crime. These laws have led directly to a dramatic increase in the delivery of quality pain control wherever they have been passed, thereby belying the canard of assisted suicide advocates that legalization of killing is necessary to improve medical caring.

The self-deliverance conference cast a much-needed light on the twisted mindset behind the assisted suicide movement. Killing devices are not akin to kidney dialysis machines and poison is not medicine. The time has come to turn away from the quackery of assisted suicide and increase the use of hospice and support actions that improve the delivery of legitimate, quality medical care for all suffering Canadians.

Wesley J. Smith is an attorney for the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force.  His next book will be Culture of Death: The Destruction of Medical Ethics in America

The Associated Press's headline put is so succinctly: "AMA Vote Targets Assisted Suicide." In just five words, the AP reassured those who do not consider death a "treatment" option that the influential American Medical Association will continue to support the Pain Relief Promotion Act (PRPA).

Critics and supporters alike knew the AMA's endorsement of the bill had been vital to its passage. On the final day of a four-day convention in December, a majority of the nearly 500 delegates reaffirmed their support of the PRPA which would prevent the [U.S.] federal government from facilitating assisted suicide by forbidding the use of federally controlled drugs to kill patients.

The full AMA House of delegates approved a resolution proposed by its Legislation Committee to reaffirm support. The committee's report noted "near consensus. that physician-assisted suicide is not an acceptable medical practice."

In addition to preventing the use of federally controlled drugs to assist in suicide, the committee emphasized that the PRPA "would for the first time establish in federal law substantial new protections for physicians prescribing controlled substances in the ordinary course of patient treatment."

There is also a strong fiscal component in the PRPA earmarked to educate physicians about how better to manage patient care.

Adapted form National Right to Life Committee News and Views - 99/12/7

By: Dr. Thomas P. Millar

In his I Say, I Say article ("Abortion is about rights, not ethics," the Medical Post, Nov. 23) Dr. Krieger tries, in a somewhat confused way, to suggest ethics have nothing to do with abortion. He seems not to understand the nature of ethics.

Most people behave as they do not because the law requires they do so, but because they believe they are doing the right thing. Their choices are governed by their ethical convictions, which simply put, is their notion of what is right and what is wrong.

There is not necessarily agreement when it comes to what is right and what is wrong. When that happens an ethical issue enters public debate. Despite Dr. Krieger, such an ethical issue has arisen with respect to abortion. Ethical issues most often arise when "rights" are in conflict, in this case, the right of a woman to have control over her reproductive system versus the right of the unborn child to become born.

If there was a way to define women as non-persons, and therefore without rights, the debate would be over. If somebody finds a way to define the fetus as a non-person, as Krieger seeks to do, the debate will also be over.

But the debate is not over. Women are persons and so are the unborn. That is a dimension of this problem that is not going to go away. Until that is admitted by the Dr. Kriegers of the world, there is no way for the ethical debate to proceed.

Were debate to be imminent, some dimensions of the problem become immediately apparent. Two simple examples: Suppose the pregnancy threatens the woman's life? Would that not so weight the scales that aborting the pregnancy, despite the innocent unborn's right to life, becomes the ethical thing to do? I think it might. Others may not.

Second example: In every case, the unborn's right to life is already in the scales. If, for the woman, it is but inconvenience or hardship in the scales, then clearly requiring her to continue with her pregnancy becomes the ethical thing to do. I think so. Others may not.

What is sorely needed is to have that ethical debate. To suggest, as Dr. Krieger does, that abortion is simply a matter for the woman to decide for herself, and not a matter of ethics, is an attempt to avoid that debate. This evasion of responsibility has become increasingly apparent to the general public.

I believe most persons feel they bear a responsibility to the unborn, and see any attempt to ignore that responsibility as an act of willful moral blindness. That is why, Dr. Krieger, the issue doesn't go away. Nor will it, until the ethical debate you would deny us is wholly engaged upon, and some solution morally acceptable to the whole society is worked out.

Reprinted with permission. Medical Post Letters to the Editor - Jan. 11, 2000 .   Dr. Thomas P. Millar is a Vancouver psychiatrist.

By: Dr. John Patrick

Most physicians and almost all the general public can give little or no account of the Hippocratic oath. Its key features are no longer dominant in our profession. There is widespread practice of revisionism in our medical schools as a vehicle for the zeitgeist of the age to promote post-modern hubris.

The Hippocratic Oath begins with an invocation to the gods (the only gods Hippocrates knew) because Hippocrates understood that someone who recognized the transcendent dimension to human life, someone who truly believes that he will give account for his actions to God is much more likely to be incorruptible when tempted to kill for monetary gain. Such a person will also recognize that a moral profession needs a moral consensus and at the heart of that consensus will be a commitment to the sanctity of life. These commitments in turn will generate a tradition rooted in moral commitments. For almost two and half millennia these insights served us well. Now we are paying the price for our lack of vigilance. Interestingly only in the last half century has the obsession with individual freedom led to patients and policy makers trying to erode physician integrity by demanding that it bend the knee to patient autonomy.

These principles are shared by many physicians. I believe that as many as 50% of physicians, when confronted with the alternatives, will prefer Hippocratic to the modern humanistic, utilitarian and tacitly atheistic principles espoused by Health Care administrators. At some point they will drive the system either into bankruptcy or into demoralized collapse; at that point we will need to be ready with an alternative approach.

This is the point of the Hippocratic registry. Some will object to particular forms of words, to the taking of an oath, to the pagan origins of the oath but these are not the substance of the project. Rather it is our intent to form a network of those who believe that medicine is fundamentally a moral activity which is committed to a high view of the value of human life and will therefore oppose those practices which are now being introduced as a direct consequence of the acceptance that we are no more than a highly evolved animal.

The general disillusion and lowered morale of the medical profession are apparent to me but these problems are also causing physicians and surgeons to reconsider their commitments. By forming a broad coalition we can better prepare ourselves for coming conflicts over issues like physicians assisted suicide and eugenics. Your participation is invited.

Dr. John Patrick is a member of the steering committee for the Canadian Registry of Hippocratic Practitioners. Dr. Patrick is Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Paediatrics at the University of Ottawa.

The enclosed brochure includes information and application for the Canadian Registry of Hippocratic Practitioners.    Order by EMAIL