22Mar 2020 by Post

In Argentina, Doctor Sentenced to Prison for Refusing to Terminate Pregnancy

abortion, adoption, animal personhood, ape, Argentina, BioEdge, bioethics, Culture & Ethics, doctor, gynecology, habeas corpus, Hippocratic Oath, human exceptionalism, human life, Leandro Rodriguez Lastra, legal impossibility, medical conscience, Medicine, moral impossibility, orangutan, pregnancy, rape, Rodríguez Lastra, Sweden, zoo
In Sweden, midwives can be fired and deemed unemployable for refusing abortion. In Ontario, Canada, doctors can face professional discipline for refusing to administer (or refer for) euthanasia. Ditto to refusing an abortion in Victoria, Australia. In California, a Catholic hospital is being sued — with the explicit blessing of the courts — for refusing to allow a transgender hysterectomy. But now in Argentina, the right to obtain an abortion has been declared so fundamental that an objecting M.D. can be held criminally culpable for refusing to terminate a pregnancy. An Impossibility? That would seem to be a moral and legal impossibility. But Argentina just elevated the “medical conscience” controversy to a whole new level of concern — from the potential of not “only” having one’s professional license revoked, but…
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17Mar 2020 by Post

Listen: Biochemist Michael Behe Puts Coronavirus in a Helpful Scientific Perspective

Andrew McDiarmid, chimpanzee, Clorox wipes, coronavirus, Evolution News, Facebook, human genome, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Lehigh University, Medicine, Michael Behe, Neil Shubin, Podcast, Social media, virosphere, viruses
What to do during a full-country shutdown? Sit at home and stare at increasingly toxic Facebook and other social media, as I’m sorry to say I did for too long on Sunday? Fortunately there’s an alternative to blithe reassurances and doomsday handwringing: Michael Behe! On a new episode of ID the Future with host Andrew McDiarmid, the Lehigh University biochemist and intelligent design advocate puts coronavirus in an objective scientific perspective. I found that oddly comforting, and I think you will, too. He explains what a virus is, what makes this one special, how viruses originated (no one knows), what he meant in a post at Evolution News about a “storm” in the virosphere, and more. 8 Percent Virus? Meanwhile, as Andrew McDiarmid notes, evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin has a…
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12Mar 2020 by Post

China Credibly Accused of Organ-Harvesting Atrocity

Apple, atrocity, Boeing, brain death, China, cornea, Culture & Ethics, Department of State, hearts, human rights, kidneys, lethal injection, livers, lungs, Medicine, Nike, organ harvesting, People’s Republic of China, PR department, prisoners, private sector, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, skin, South Carolina, United States
Last week, the Independent Tribunal into Forced Organ Harvesting from Prisoners of Conscience in China issued its final report concluding that China engages in the systematic human-rights atrocity of killing political and other prisoners and harvesting their organs. (I wrote about the preliminary report here.) It is a horrific account to which woefully inadequate attention has been paid. Shocking Evidence Over more than 500 detailed pages, the report presents shocking evidence of horrific human-rights abuses, including from witness testimony, analyses of public records, and reviewing of scholarly reports. The question presented could not be more disturbing. From the final “Judgment”: If the accusations are true, then thousands of innocent people have been killed…having their bodies — the physical integrity of their beings — cut open while still alive for their…
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07Mar 2020 by Post

Rats Are People, Too!

ambassador, Animal Welfare Act, animals, anthropocentrism, bioethicists, Culture & Ethics, human exceptionalism, humans, Jane Goodall, Kristen Andrews, lab rats, medical experiments, Medicine, mice, misanthropy, monkeys, Nuremberg Code, philosophy, rats, reduction, refinement, replacement, Susana Monsó
If animal-rights activists ever had their way, all uses of animals by humans would cease — no matter how beneficial to our welfare and thriving. That emphatically includes animal research in medical and scientific experiments.  Animal rights activists falsely claim that no value to humans comes from such experiments — a claim I have rebutted often. Not only does animal research save human lives and offer invaluable information about biology, but it has also been deemed a crucial human-rights protection. The Nuremberg Code specifically stated that animal studies must be conducted before human subject research. International laws and protocols have encoded this wisdom. Rats Are “Empathetic”? But animal rights activists keep fighting. The latest effort — by Kristen Andrews, a professor of philosophy, and Susana Monsó, a bioethicist — argues that…
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01Feb 2020 by Post

In Washington State, Assisted Suicide “Protections” Become “Barriers”

assisted suicide, barriers, Death with Dignity Act, guidelines, HB 2419, Medicine, protections, self-administration, University of Washington, Washington State
Razzle-dazzle them. That’s what good carney pitchmen do to sell their wares. So do assisted-suicide advocates. When pitching legalization, they solemnly promise that they have written, Oh, so “protective guidelines” into the legislation to prevent abuse. Then, once the law is safely in place, advocates grouse that the guidelines they touted are “obstacles” or “barriers” that unjustly prevent suffering people from accessing assisted suicide. Eventually, political agitation begins to amend the law to make things, shall we say, more flexible. A Slippery Slope We see this slippery slope process in action in Washington. Assisted suicide has been legal there for several years, and now a bill has been filed to require a university study into alleged “barriers facing Washington’s residents to the Death with Dignity Act,” and to have that…
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25Jan 2020 by Post

Pressuring a Hospice to Kill

and organ-transplant centers, Angeline Ireland, assisted suicide, Big Government, British Columbia, Canada, caring, conscientious objection, Delta Hospice Society, dementia, doctors, ethics, euthanasia, freedom of conscience, hospice, hospice palliative care, killing, MAiD, medical assistance in dying, Medicine, memory-support facilities, minister of health, nursing homes, organ harvesting, patients, pediatric euthanasia, pediatric hospitals, podiatry, psychiatric institutions, Quebec, religious beliefs, socialism, socialized medicine, United States
Should hospice professionals be forced to assist the suicides of their patients who want to die? Not too long ago, the answer to that question would have been an emphatic “Of course not!” Hospice is not about making people dead. Rather, it seeks to help terminally ill patients live well through intensive medical, spiritual, psychological, and social treatments to alleviate the pain and emotional suffering that dying people and their families may experience. Don’t tell that to the provincial government of British Columbia. After the Supreme Court of Canada conjured a right for anyone diagnosed with a serious medical condition that causes “irremediable suffering” to receive lethal-injection euthanasia, British Columbia passed a law requiring all medical facilities that receive at least 50 percent of their funding from the government to…
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15Jan 2020 by Post

Save Animals, Not Sick People, from Death?

animal shelters, animals, California, cats, Culture & Ethics, doctor, Dogs, euthanasia, Gavin Newsom, governor, health care, Koret Shelter Medicine Program, lethal prescription, Medicine, patients, press conference, Sacramento Bee, UC Davis
Misplaced priorities are California’s specialty. Here’s an example: Governor Gavin Newsom wants to end euthanasia in animal shelters. From the Sacramento Bee story: Gov. Gavin Newsom wants California to stop euthanizing animals, and he’s ready to put taxpayer money toward the cause. “We want to be a no-kill state,” Newsom said during a press conference where he presented his 2020-21 budget. Specifically, Newsom’s budget calls for a $50 million one-time general fund allocation to the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program to develop a grant program for animal shelters, with a goal of helping local communities “achieve the state’s policy goal that no adoptable or treatable dog or cat should be euthanized,” according to the budget summary. Ironically, as the governor works to save animals from death, California has not…
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11Jan 2020 by Post

In Canada, Euthanasia as “Boon” to Organ Donation

assisted suicide, Belgium, bioethics, bodies, Canada, disabled, donations, euthanasia, MAiD, medically assisted deaths, Medicine, mentally ill, Netherlands, Ontario, organ donation, Ottawa Citizen, patients, Ronnie Gavsie, Trillium Gift of Life Network
My very first anti-euthanasia column, published in Newsweek, warned that societal acceptance of assisted suicide/euthanasia would eventually include organ harvesting “as a plum to society.” I was called an alarmist and a fear-monger, but alas, I was right. In Belgium and the Netherlands, mentally ill and disabled people are killed in hospitals at their request, and then, their bodies are harvested — with the success of the procedures written up with all due respect in organ-transplant medical journals. Our Cousins to the North Our closest cultural cousins in Canada are enthusiastically following the same utilitarian path, not only allowing organ harvesting to be conjoined with euthanasia, but “medically assisted death” is being boosted increasingly as “a boon.” Note the celebratory lede in this Ottawa Citizen story: Ontarians who opt for…
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22Dec 2019 by Post

Forcing a Hospice to Euthanize in Canada

Adrian Dix, authoritarianism, British Columbia, Canada, caring, compassion, Delta Hospice Society, doctor, euthanasia, Fraser Health, Globe and Mail, Health Minister, hospice, Irene Thomas Hospice, Medicine, Ontario, patient, Soylent Green
Euthanasia is more than just legal in Canada. It has become a government-guaranteed right. But how to guarantee that the legally qualified who want to die are made dead? Unless the government establishes killing centers out of Soylent Green, it will have to coerce doctors into doing the killing — as has been done in Ontario. And, it will have to force medical facilities into allowing euthanasia on premises, whether their administators like it or not. Standing Tall Such an imposition is now taking place in British Columbia, where the Dignity Hospice board of directors are standing tall for the hospice philosophy of caring — but never killing — by refusing to permit euthanasia in the facililty. In response, the B.C. Health Minister is threatening to restrict funding in the…
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15Dec 2019 by Post

Media in a Swoon over Death Doctor and His Suicide Machine

assisted suicide, Australia, Bon Jovi, cancer, elderly people, euthanasia, euthanasia drugs, human vivisection, Jack Kevorkian, Katherine Jean Lopez, Medicine, Nancy Crick, National Review, Philip Nitschke, Sarco, suicide pills, The Economist
The mainstream media mostly went head over heels over Jack Kevorkian’s ghoulish assisted suicide campaign, rarely mentioning that his ultimate goal was to gain the right to conduct human vivisection on people being euthanized. Suicide Pod Machine The Australian Kevorkian — Philip Nitschke — hasn’t advocated that. But he has traveled the world teaching people how to commit suicide, published a suicide recipe he invented made of common household ingredients, and pushed a pernicious death-on-demand philosophy. Now The Economist swoons over “the bad boy of the euthanasia movement,” touting his new suicide pod machine in a profile of a length few presidents have received. From “A Design for Death”: My host’s name is Philip Nitschke and he’s invented a machine called Sarco. Short for sarcophagus, the slick, spaceship-like pod has a seat…
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