have been doing a little reading about Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the head bioethicist at the NIH and brother of the president’s chief of staff. He is a supporter of health care rationing, which is relevant to the current health care debate. In a Lancet article earlier this year, he suggested that age be a proper method of allocating scarce resources, and indeed, stated that age based allocation is not invidious discrimination. . .
______________________________________________________________
The Medicare “mandatory counseling” controversy in the Obamacare debate laid bare a realistic fear that compensated counseling under Medicare could easily become subtle (or not so subtle) persuasion to refuse treatment–particularly since the primary point of the clause is to cut costs.
Here is an example of why I believe that the fear is realistic. The Center for Practical Bioethics has published a “Caring Conversations” workbook, in which intimate issues and details of life, death, and end of life options are raised. Nothing wrong with that, in and of itself, of course. It all depends on how it is done. . .
Thread by me.
Debbie Purdy was “ecstatic”. It was a strange reaction to the news that it had suddenly become easier to be killed in Zurich. But the real reason for her elation was that the news also meant it might soon become easier to be killed in Britain.
The law lords had just ruled that the director of public prosecutions (DPP) must make it clear under what circumstances he would prosecute somebody for assisting a suicide. It was the law lords’ last ruling before they themselves are killed off and replaced by a Supreme Court.
Multiple sclerosis will kill Purdy, 46, if the Dignitas clinic in Zurich does not do it first. Her argument was that she needed to know whether her husband, Omar Puente, would be prosecuted if he helped her make her last journey. If he would, she said, she would have to go and take the lethal dose of Nembutal soon, well before incapacity prevented her from travelling alone. If he would not, she could safely put it off for years. . .