Not all of the murders committed in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina were committed by people from lower socio-economic brackets.
Some physicians were afraid of the threatening circumstances created by murdering hoodlums in the city.
So they murdered them themselves.
If the following press report is true.
GET THE (ABOMINABLE!) STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
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“In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, one New Orleans doctor told how she ‘prayed for God to have mercy on her soul’ after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.”–from the article Jimmy cites.
I hope He does have mercy on her soul. If the story is true, that doctor was faced with a choice I hope I never have to make.
That doctor was faced with someone else’s choice, not hers. She was neither God nor even the patient, so she had absolutely no right to do this from either the moral or secular point of view.
There are worse things than dying in agony in the middle of a disaster, and one of them is being murdered by your own doctor.
A LCMS pastor offers a different opinion at The Burr in the Burgh.
May the Lord manifest His infinite justice.
I think that the State should prosecute them. Their medical licenses should be revoked. Their families should sue them and the Hospital in State and Federal courts. Especially in Federal court for violating their civil rights. You know, the one about the Right of Life.
I have NO compassion for these “doctors” and “nurses”. I have no compassion for Dr. Mengele. I have no compassion for the Roman soldiers who whipped Christ. My compassion is reserved for those who were killed and their grieving families.
People who think this stuff is OK or just “a hard call to make”, make me sick to my stomach.
I don’t know that I believe this story. I would think that SOME American news source would have picked up on it.
To me, it’s right up there with the ‘poor people eating flesh from the dead to survive” story.
Well, people DO cannabalize when they’re starving…it’s a well-recorded historical fact.
John F. Kennedy said: “I have NO compassion for these “doctors” and “nurses”. I have no compassion for Dr. Mengele. I have no compassion for the Roman soldiers who whipped Christ. My compassion is reserved for those who were killed and their grieving families.”
That’s too bad. Christ had plenty of compassion for his tormentors: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
C’mon, John F. Kennedy, tell us how you really feel.
Okay, there are several options open to the doctors and nurses in question when dealing with a situation like this, none of which are going to be altogether pleasant to consider.
1)They could have left the people where they were (after maybe moving them to an upper floor, or something) and hoped for the best.
2)They could have chosen to stay and give the dying what help and comfort were possible (like non-lethal doses of pain killer).
3)They could have taken the time and trouble to evacuate these patients, even though they were dying.
Option one is the least palatable, because it means basically abandoning the patients, leaving the caregiver in a state of anxiety regarding their welfare.
Option two would mean risking the life of the caregiver (just at a time when medical personnel are going to be greatly needed), but it would be a meritorious act, IMHO.
Option three would be alot of work. Other than that, I don’t see a downside (that something may be alot of work is never a good excuse for not doing it). This too, would be a meritorious act.
But when did administering killing doses of drugs become an option? Where did this idea come from?
The idea that there was “no other choice” is simply wrong. Sorry, anonymous doctor, but I think you should go to prison.
But when did administering killing doses of drugs become an option? Where did this idea come from?
Um…well…the book I’m reading says it was Nazi Germany.
If the following press report is true.
Without corroboration, I would put the story in the category of the worst of tabloid journalism.
CRIMINAL activities should be punished. In the name of compassion should the criminals be set free? In yesterday’s Gospel the servant was forgiven his debts. He in turn did not do likewise. Then the master had the servant given over to the torturers till ALL of the debt was paid in full.
Likewise doctors and nurses who have been given authority to act as medical personnel by the state have failed in their duty. Now they must pay for their crimes. While God may forgive them for their sins and their victims for their injuries, the State has the moral duty to protect the citizens. Laws MUST be enforced or chaos will rule the streets as it did in New Orleans.
In the military, doctors and other medical staff would sometimes remain in a dangerous situation to help their patients. They didn’t shoot them. It is also happened that doctors and nurses would treat and help those suffering with deadly communicable disease. They didn’t abandoned them or kill them. So there is precedence for doctors staking their lives for their patients. Of course those doctors believed in the unaltered Hippocratic Oath.
This is the kind of baloney folks use all the time to justify abortion and euthenasia –
“It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity.”
Someone above linked to me because I gave a different view. Please hear me out. I am not trying to defend what these doctors did. When I read the article, I did write a post saying they may have made an ethical decision. I know many will disagree. I am truly opposed to euthanasia. I have written many posts against what was done to Terri Schiavo. I believe she was murdered. But there is one difference. Hear me out. The N.O. patients were dying and not receiving treatment. It suggested they would have died likely within hours in any case. They were in a highly unusual situation. Armed looters were taking shots at the hospital. Electricity was failing. I am not saying I would have done what those doctors did. I am just open to the idea that they did the lesser of two evils. I am willing to be rebuked and corrected by my Christian brothers and sisters. And will probably post again, clarifying myself.
Scott;
Please explain “an ethical decision”? All moral decisions involve ethics. The questions what kind of ethics, good or bad. Plus whether or not that have the authority to make that decision. A thief makes a ethical decision (a bad one) to steal someones goods, a decision that they are not intitled to make.
After re-reading the story, and considering the source (a London tabloid) I think it’s possible the story is simply false.
But, to answer Scott- Directly killing people in order to alleviate suffering is wrong. Extreme circumstances don’t change that. If we begin to kill people to save them from suffering, then where do we draw the line? Do we include emotional or mental suffering? How bad should the suffering be? What constitutes “terminal” illness? I know it’s a slippery slope argument, but it happens to be true.
Sometimes, in order to follow God’s will, we have to be willing to shoulder our cross, even if it involves great suffering. As hard as it is, sometimes we have to watch other people carry a terrible cross, and may be powerless to help.
We should always do all we can to comfort the suffering, but God is sovereign. We can’t say, “Well, it would be better for them to die.”. That is despair, and despair is the opposite of faith.
Thank you Tim J. for your thoughtful rebuke. I hope you won’t mind that I’ve quoted you on my blog where I retract my former post.
Some physicians were afraid of the threatening circumstances created by murdering hoodlums in the city.
So they murdered them themselves.
This made it sound like the doctors murdered the hoodlums rather than their patients. Confusing 🙂
Christ had plenty of compassion for his tormentors
Good thing too, or else we’d all be TOAST.
“I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven…. Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
“You, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.”
The idea that there was “no other choice” is simply wrong.
I agree.
Great posts by Tim J. and Scott Stiegemeyer.
“under the most appalling circumstances, and I did what I thought was right.”
I am sure that this is true. What is frightening is that medical professionals are no longer capable of thinking straight in a crisis. Their instinctive reflexes are no longer sound.
In a moment of crisis we either act virtuously based on habitual virtuous acts and a well-formed conscience or our notoriously unreliable feelings take over and we run like cowards, or overreact to possible threats or engage in mercy killing out of sentimentality.
God will forgive them if they repent or to the extent they acted out of panic. But WE need to understand how deeply corrupted the thinking of the medical profession and the general culture that forms them has become.
God will forgive them if they repent or to the extent they acted out of panic. But WE need to understand how deeply corrupted the thinking of the medical profession and the general culture that forms them has become.
Well said.
JFK:
I agree with what you said about law, punishment, etc. I never said otherwise.
But giving someone a just punishment is not the same as having no compassion for them, and a person’s crimes should never rid you of compassion for them. The quotes pha posted are all worth reading.
Sometimes the compassionate thing is the punishment. The correction, if you will. This may foster repentance and a change of heart. Sometimes the compassion is for the Society and in this case removal from authority and from the society in order to protect the society.
Repentance is the key. It’s seems clear to me that just because you forgive someone doesn’t mean that they won’t be punished. Has Christ paid the price? Can someone go to Hell because they haven’t repented? Yes on both accounts. God can give the gift of forgiveness, but like all gifts it can be refused. MANY will be saved, not all. Thought Christ paid for all.
I tired of hearing those quotes taken out of context. Repentance is the key. Without we separate ourselves from God and no matter how much it would be NICE they can’t be saved.
We can be good examples. We can pray. But we need to act.
Sometimes the compassionate thing is the punishment. The correction, if you will. This may foster repentance and a change of heart.
No one has argued, to my knowledge, that punishment is by nature uncompassionate. No one has argued, as you fear, that criminals should be freed in the name of compassion.
The problem is that earlier you were claiming that you “have NO compassion for these ‘doctors’ and ‘nurses’. I have no compassion for Dr. Mengele. I have no compassion for the Roman soldiers who whipped Christ. My compassion is reserved for those who were killed and their grieving families.”
If you do not love those doctors and nurses, if you do not have compassion even for Dr. Mengele, you will inevitably lose your own soul.
I tired of hearing those quotes taken out of context.
The scripture quotes I provided were not out of context. God is loving and compassionate both toward the repentant and the unrepentant. “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” He has loved you when you made youself his enemy. Were it not for that love, you would never have come to repentance: “We love Him because He first loved us.”
There must have been so many different scenarios, it is hard to comment, but the Church does allow the use of painkillers to the extent necessary to alleviate the pain even if the dose necessary shortens the Patient’s life.
IF that was the case, it may be morally defensible.
Pastor Stiegemeyer.
Say what? I am boggled and ashamed as a member of an LC-MS congregation that you could write that.
-Real- doctors would have let the patients have their seats in the evacuation vehicles, or stayed with them. They swore an oath. The patients might have died within hours IF no one evacuated them. But the doctors fled, leaving some nurses behind. That is cowardace, not medicine, and NOT Christian.
Then I read that you retracted that. Now I’m proud. That takes humility.