Tag euthanasia

The Nazi Plan Step 2

Ed

This is part 4 of my thoughts from The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Jay Lifton (click here to see it on Amazon.com)  Click here to read part 3.

The second step of the Nazi plan that Dr. Lifton identified was the killing of “impaired” children in hospitals. It started innocently enough, midwives and physicians were asked to completed reports at the time of birth. The first reports asked for information where “‘serious hereditary diseases’ were ‘suspected’: idiocy and mongolism (especially when associated with blindness and deafness); microcephaly; hydrocephaly; malformations of all kinds, especially of limbs, head, and spinal columns; and paralysis, including spastic conditions.”(52)

Children who were labelled with a hereditary disease were continually evaluated until they eventually arrived in special wards “whose chiefs and prominent doctors were known to be politically reliable and ‘positive’ toward the goals of the Reich Committee.'”(53) The children were eventually killed in those wards.

Why did parents allow this to happen to their children? How can someone convince a parent that it would be better to kill his child than to let the child live? They used the idea where healing and killing were reversed. Lifton writes (54):

A doctor could tell a parent that “it might be necessary to perform a surgical operation that could possibly have an unfavorable result,” or explain that “the ordinary therapy employed until now could no longer help their child so that extraordinary therapeutic measures have to be taken.” Dr. Heinze, who used such phrases with parents, explained in court testimony that there had been truth to what he said: “A very excitable child . . . completely idiotic . . . could not be kept   quiet with the normal dose of sedatives,” so that “an overdose . . . had to be used in order to . . . avoid endangering itself through its own restlessness.” At the same time, “we physicians know that such an overdose of sedative, for children usually luminal . . . could cause pneumonia . . . and that this is virtually incurable.”

“Horrible,” you think to yourself. “Unconscionable,” you suggest. What if you were told that this happens everyday today in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom? What if you were told that anywhere between 85 to 92 percent of the babies diagnosed with Downs Syndrome in the U.S. were aborted? (Click here, here, or here for more information.) What if you were told that during the in vitro fertilization procedure, preimplantation genetic diagnosis is conducted on the embryo and those with Down Syndrome or some other genetic disease were discarded? (Click here for a recent article.)

Make no mistake, step 2 of the Nazi plan is alive and well as we abort babies or discard embryos just because they have some sort of genetic disease.

And don’t forget about making killing sound like healing. For example, how do pro-aborts talk about abortions and abortion-inducing drugs? They are considered as part of women’s healthcare. Opponents of abortion or mandatory insurance coverage for possible abortion-inducing drugs (e.g. Ella, Plan B, morning after pill) are vilified by the media and by pro-aborts as not caring for women’s health.

And how do the supporters of physician assisted suicide get it legalized? By saying this is a medical treatment that will help end the suffering of the patient. In physician assisted suicide, the person wanting to die gets a prescription that basically is an overdose of painkillers or sedatives. Does that sound familiar?

Yes, the tactics that the Nazis employed are still in use by those who want society to embrace death as a cure.

Update July 19, 2012.

The Nazi Plan

Ed

This is part 3 of my thoughts from The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Jay Lifton (click here to see it on Amazon.com)  Click here to read part 2.

In order to rid the Volk of this disease, Dr. Lifton identified five distinctive steps in the Nazis process (21):

  1. Coercive sterilization of those deemed less “desirable”
  2. The killing of “impaired” children in hospitals
  3. The killing of “impaired” adults in centers especially equipped with carbon monoxide gas
  4. The killing of “impaired” inmates of concentration and extermination camps
  5. Mass killings in the extermination camps

Most people that I’ve related these five steps outlined here are repulsed by the thought that any government would sanction these actions. But of course, we’re doing it today in the U.S. I’ll make the connections for you in subsequent posts but I’ll start here with Step 1: Coercive sterilization.

Many states in the U.S. had passed forced sterilization laws in the early 1900’s. Some of these states kept enforcing these laws into the 1970’s. Read recent news articles about the eugenic past of the U.S. by clicking here to read about forced sterilization in North Carolina or clicking here to read about forced sterilization in Washington.

The difference between Nazi Germany and the rest of the world was that the Nazis went on to steps 2-5 and the rest of the world didn’t, or did they?

Stayed tuned to see how we kill “impaired” children today. (Click here to read part 4.)

Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, Part 2

Ed

This is part 2 of my thoughts from The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Jay Lifton (click here to see it on Amazon.com)  Click here to read part 1.

The inculcation of genocide into the medical professional’s psyche was methodical. It began with dehumanizing the perceived “enemy” of the state: the Jews. Lifton wrote: “At the heart of the Nazi enterprise, then, is the destruction of the boundary between healing and killing” (14). He then recounts a discussion between a survivor physician and a Nazi doctor (15ff):

But there is another perspective on medicalized killing that I believe to be insufficiently recognized: killing as a therapeutic imperative. That kind of motivation was revealed in the words of a Nazi doctor quoted by the distinguished survivor physician Dr. Ella Lingens-Reiner. Pointing to the chimneys in the distance, she asked a Nazi doctor, Fritz Klein, “How can you reconcile that with your [Hippocratic] oath as a doctor?” His answer was, “Of course I am a doctor and I want to preserve life. And out of respect for human life, I would remove a gangrenous appendix from a diseased body. The Jew is the gangrenous appendix in the body of mankind.”

Isn’t that exactly what we have today in the abortion industry? In fact, abortion and abortifacients are often sold to the public as “women’s healthcare” because the easiest way to get people to support what you want is to tell them that you’re trying to help them. By calling abortion and abortifacients a part of women’s healthcare a wall is built so that those who are pro-abortion care for women and those who are against abortion do not care for women.

But the reality in Nazi Germany was the leaders, the perpetrators of the ideology, didn’t want to help anyone but themselves and those that were caught up in it (the doctors) didn’t even realize what had happened to their view of reality.

Click here to read about the five identifiable steps to the Nazi plan in part 3.

Updated July 16, 2012.

Man Does Not Know His Time — Jack Kevorkian

Ed

On June 3, 2011, Jack Kevorkian died of natural causes. He is best known for promoting assisted suicide and his claims to have helped over 130 people to end their lives. In an interview last year, Kevorkian stated that he had no regrets, “How can you regret helping a suffering patient?“

During his years at medical school, Kevorkian was promoting a utilitarian view of human life as he advocated for allowing murderers on death row a choice to die by anesthesia thus allowing their bodies to be used for medical experiments or organ donation (see NY Times article). His utilitarian view served as the foundation for why he viewed death as a help to a suffering patient. Never mind that suffering is totally subjective and that anyone, at any time, could say that they are suffering too much and wished to die. Rather than offering hope, love and care, Kevorkian only offered death as a solution to pain and suffering.

In today’s world, society tells us that it’s okay to look at someone who is suffering or in pain, shake our heads and say “wouldn’t it be better if we could just end this suffering?” Kevorkian’s promotion of assisted suicide, and even euthanasia, led people only to despair…the despair of thinking there is nothing of value to their lives and that they are a burden to their families, friends, and caregivers.

But there is a different way. We are admonished to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ”  (Galatians 6:2 NKJV). We can help those who are suffering know that they are not alone, that someone does care for and love them. Rather than confirm someone’s fear that they are no longer “useful” to us by helping them kill themselves, we ought to reaffirm that they are valuable and valued. By selflessly bearing one another’s burdens, we fulfill Christ’s commandment to “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12 NKJV).

Maybe it’s just me, but…rather than do what Kevorkian did, that is, help or encourage people who are facing seemingly insurmountable pain or suffering kill themselves, or kill them directly at their request, we ought to help someone through their suffering. We can walk beside them and show them that all human life is precious and valuable no matter what age the person is, what condition the body may be in, or what stage of development that human life has reached. Even more importantly, we ought lead them to the one true hope we have, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

May God have mercy on your soul, Dr. Kevorkian.

“But as for me, I trust in You, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hand.” Psalm 31:14-15 (NKJV)

Health Plans Forced to Provide Assisted Suicide Counseling

Ed

Another little gem found in H.R. 3962 Affordable Health Care for America Act involves the requirement for your health insurance plan to provide and pay for assisted suicide counseling.

Section 240 requires that all companies offering a qualified health benefits plan to “provide for the dissemination of information related to end-of-life planning to individuals seeking enrollment in Exchange-participating health benefits plans offered through the Exchange” [Sec. 240(a)(1)]. This section also explicitly states that the insurance company cannot promote suicide, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing [Sec. 240(a)(3) and Sec. 240(d)(1)].

The problem is that this section does not “preempt or otherwise have any effect on State laws regarding advance care planning, palliative care, or end-of-life decision-making” [Sec. 240(d)(3)]. Oregon, the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, does not consider their legislation to have allowed “suicide, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.” Instead, they consider their legislation to have allowed patients to make a choice to face “death with dignity.” In fact, it is called the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, as is the Washington version passed into law last year.

Thus, your health insurance plan will now be required to promote and pay for “death with dignity” consultations in those states that have passed such legislation. Why is it that this bill is interested in promoting life-ending programs rather than life-saving or life-extending programs?

For more information on Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, go to the Oregon Department of Human Services . For more information on Washington’s Death with Dignity Act, go to the Washington Department of Health.

H.R. 3962 is just plain wrong for America; it does not protect human life and our well-being at any age or any stage as it purports to do; instead it does exactly the opposite: it promotes death and the devaluation of human life.

It is imperative that you contact your senator or representative today via mail, phone calls, and emails. Go to the National Right to life for assistance with how to do this by clicking here.

[Corrected March 21, 2010]