When Infants Die

Doc over at Mind, Soul, and Body has a thoughtful piece on some of the most difficult circumstances I can imagine – being faced with the prospect of a dying infant.

Dying infants break our hearts for all kinds of reasons, and parents and loved ones face a titanic struggle between what they face and what they believe.

You see, we carry around in our very beings a plethora of expectations around life, especially around the lives of a newborn:

Nobody should die young.

Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children.

We don’t care if it’s a boy or girl; we just want our child to be healthy.

But that is not what we find in the pediatric ICU. We find very, very sick babies. We find absolutely no prospect of recovery.

There will be no happy photos of first days at kindergarten, school, or college. There will be no endless, badly filmed video that will be played over and over again across the years, with chuckles all the while.

No first love, no getting married in clothes that years later will look so terribly dated.

All gone.

But not yet gone. Before us, a frail form clinging to what could have been.

Doc explains just how disabled and medically vulnerable these children are. His descriptions don’t make for easy reading, but they’re accurate.

He struggles, as do we all, with where to find the compromise between comfort care and the unrelenting reality that sooner, rather than later, every effort will fail.

But, in the end, it’s really not that complicated, because there are essentially two choices.

We can go the route of Peter Singer, who insists we should euthanize these infants, or, in Baroness Warnock’s harsh world, that they should be “put down.” Or we can take note of what happens routinely in the Netherlands, where dying babies are routinely euthanized because they have no hope of a “good quality of life.”

What hideously casual utilitarian decisions!

But, as Doc suggests, there is another, better choice: Supporting the family, gently explaining every option. Using every medical and palliative tool to provide comfort and ease pain. Being patient as families grieve.

All this, because we are dealing with a human life, an exceptional life, no matter how brief. 

A life worth just as much as anyone more perfect. 

Loving and gentle medical care so that whatever time is left can be spent making the memories, brief as they will be, to warm and console hearts after that Long Slow Goodbye. 

Love and Respect x 2: The Propaganda that More Killing is Better

John West has been all over the media in the last week or so, peddling his book about how he helped his parents kill themselves. He’s trying mightily to convince us that he’s a good and loving son because he didn’t have enough backbone to refuse to be an accessory to willful death - twice.

Or, as he puts it, he helped them kick the bucket because, as he says, “I loved and respected my parents.”

Ergo, helping parents die is what good, loving children do. Especially if they respect their parents. Doing it again is love and respect x 2.

These, and other dangerous pro-death party lines were evident in West’s extensive on-line chat with the Washington Post.

Chilling. Not only in what West said, but in the perceptions of the chatters with whom he engaged. Let me just say that most people in the chat seemed dimly uninformed.

Here’s a chatter on the old stereotype that animals and humans are basically the same:

Anywhere, USA: My poor mother had to be off life support for 10 days before she passed, my dog had to endure a few moments before she was able to go to the big dog park in the sky. I believe I will go to my Vet if I get sick, my dog got better treatment and it was with dignity.

Baroness Warnock would be proud.

Others conjured up the usual (and almost entirely ignorant) nightmares of machines and pain.

And of course, West himself raised the pro-death favorite euphemism comparing people to plants:

My mother . . . had no interest in turning into a vegetable, and so she chose to end her life sooner rather than later.

And, just in case you don’t think the underlying motive in this unspeakable squalor isn’t about reducing people to a cold dollar amount, read this little interchange from the chat:

Springfield, Va.: Your point about medical science keeping us "dying longer" is interesting. . . . I have also heard many times if there was a meter running showing the cost incurred keeping someone alive who is going to die anyway, people would make the decision to suspend medical care much faster. Do you think this is true?

John West: I think it might be true. A "meter" is an objective way to show people the truth of what's going on.

But I digress.

John West can write all the books about killing he wants. Good luck to him as he smarmily enjoys his 15 minutes of fame.

But, let me raise two points:

First, I’d encourage the California Bar to tell us what needs to be done with a lawyer who openly admits to committing crimes.

Second, lawyer West’s feigned ignorance about the LAW in Oregon and Washington, and the death machine that is now most of Europe, is not ignorance at all – it’s holding forth in an authoritative way (he’s a lawyer and author, don’t you know? Must be right, right?) to mislead you.

Here are two examples of West’s outrageous and willful disinformation:

The John West Spin I: 

There's a LOT of legal oversight in Oregon and now Washington State, as in The Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland, where it's currently allowed.

Really? Then how come every year thousands of hospital patients in the Netherlands are euthanized without them ever having requested it, talked about it, or anything else?

The John West Spin II: 

The laws in Oregon (and now Washington State) require 2 physician (sic) to agree that you're facing death from a terminal illness within 6 months, and you're in extreme pain, and that you're mentally competent to make the decision to take life-ending drugs.

Yes, and …… ???? 

That’s only half the story.

Here’s the other half: Once the lethal drugs are prescribed, that’s the end of any oversight at all.

West implies that physicians are there at the end: making it all oh-so-proper and transparent, you see!

Uh-huh.

Nope, assisted suicides in Oregon and Washington can happen anywhere, anytime, away from everyone, assisted by somebody else – anyone else.

Even if that somebody else is after your stuff. Even if that somebody "helps" you take the fatal dose without your asking. Even if that somebody is really tired of taking care of you.

Get the picture?

Makes me wonder, although we’ll never know:

West admits that he was there when his parents died.

How can we know, seeing that there was no oversight, what the circumstances were with Loving John and his parents shuttered away behind closed doors?

Twice.

In the UK, Having a Disability Might Make People Want to Kill You

Given the state of affairs in the UK related to futile care, the growing disregard of those who have medical and other disabilities, and the growing popularity of assisted suicide, I must admit I’m a little baffled at the fuss caused by a story in The Times.

The British press was all a-twitter because they got a glimpse of the reality of how the culture of death sees people with disabilities.

I’m shocked that they’re shocked.

Here’s what happened:

59 year-old Barry Baker, a pensioner who could only walk using two canes, called 999 and reported that he was having severe chest pain. He was pretty sure he was having a heart attack.

The emergency operator kept Baker on the line while EMTs were dispatched. By the time they arrived, Baker had collapsed.

One big problem. At least for the two EMTs: The phone line to 999 was still open, the tape rolling.

From The Times:

Two ambulancemen have been arrested by police after they were heard allegedly discussing whether they should bother to resuscitate a disabled man who had collapsed at home and subsequently died. . . . [and] making disparaging comments about the state of the house. . . . They are said to have discussed what to tell ambulance control and decided to say that Mr Baker was already dead when they got there.

I don’t see the problem. What the EMTs did is a perfectly logical outcome of a society that has

• prominent people suggesting those who are ill or disabled should be “put down” (Baroness Warnock);
  
• a prominent Scottish politician calling for legislating assisted suicide for children;
  
• broadcast an assisted suicide on a major TV channel;
  
• public opinion that increasingly thinks that old people or those with severe disabilities should do everyone a favor and kick the bucket; and
  
• a penchant for lionizing families who “did the right thing” by participating in the assisted suicide of a loved one.
  

I’ll bet that the EMTs got a fair dose of futile care theory in their medical training.

I’d bet even further that their profession is riddled with the idea that “quality of life” has to be of the highest order or life’s not worth living - or saving. 

Best bet ‘til last: If you think this doesn’t happen everywhere, on many calls to people with medical and other disabilities, but which slip by because the tape’s not running, then I’m the Queen of England. 

Down Syndrome in Aussie: Get it Early, Get it All

Well, well.

Sibling rivalry in the old Empire has just been raised a notch.

The Brits are hell-bent on assisted suicide show-and-tell. Some Scots are proposing legislation to make available assisted suicide for children. Baroness Warnock charges around the isle hooting about “putting people down.”

Not to be outdone, the Aussies are falling over themselves to do us all a favor and rid their corner of the planet of those pesky people with Down syndrome.

It was the Aussie government, you’ll recall, that refused Dr. Bernard Moeller a permanent residence visa because his son. Lukas, has DS. Those DS kids cost the heath care system lots of money, you know. The powers that be eventually backtracked, but only after a public furor.

I’ll guarantee there won’t be a similar outcry over their latest proposal of eugenic discrimination.

Same syndrome, different tactic.

Problem: Once there are Aussies with DS walking around, they are somewhat protected, even if only by public outrage.

Solution?

Change tactics: Get ‘em really early. 

Sorry, sorry!! I mean the Aussies are proposing a “National Screening Policy for Down Syndrome.”

The get -‘em-early policy is to institute universal in-utero screening  for DS. That way, DS can be destroyed before seeing the light of day.

Think of it. Proposals for an official, legal, government policy to eradicate people who are genetically different.

Nothing more, nothing less.

It’s 1930s Nazi Germany all over again. Trust me.

The Baroness Who Thinks People are Animals

For people who aren’t sure what all this “Culture of Death” talk means, let me share a little of what’s happening in Britain right now.

Meet Baroness Mary Warnock.

She’s a prominent British public figure who says things that sound quite outlandish. If you were a casual observer, there’s a good chance that you’d dismiss her as pretty nutty.

Big mistake.

Baroness W says what she means, and she means what she says. There’s a big chunk of the population, in Britain and elsewhere, who think she’s spot-on.

Here’s some background: Baroness W is a former headmistress, commission chair, and perfectly sane woman.

Her passion is undeniable.

Her ideas are dangerous.

She’s always had a pro-death outlook. Years ago, after initially coming out against euthanasia, she changed her mind, supposedly because she saw the benefit of euthanasia after the family doctor euthanized her husband.

Nice.

Let’s also remember that this is the same Lady Warnock who, a while back, made the case for parents paying for their infants’ care, including for life support equipment, if those infants were judged as having little to no chance of leading healthy lives.

Several weeks ago, Lady W was at it again.

Here are some gems reported in the Times of London:

"I'm absolutely, fully in agreement with the argument that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die, but I feel there's a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they're a burden to their family, or the state, then I think they too should be allowed to die.

"Actually I've just written an article called 'A Duty to Die?' for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself."

"I think that's the way the future will go, putting it rather brutally, you'd be licensing people to put others down."

Just to review, Lady Warnock believes the following groups should be candidates for assisted suicide or euthanasia, or to use her chilling term for being “put down:”

(a) people experiencing insufferable pain

(b) those who absolutely want to die because they’re a burden to their family or the state, and

(c) those who feel they ought to die for their sake and for the sake of others.

This is a very large group of people identified by sweeping, undefined, and deliberately vague criteria.

Watch out, Put-Them-Down-Mary might be after someone you know.