Editor's note. The following appeared
Thursday on Wesley Smith's terrific blog,
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke.
Bioethicist Jacob Appel can be relied on to
promote the most radical bioethics agendas,
assisted suicide for the mentally ill, fetal
farming, you name it. And now he has argued
that if Montana affirms a constitutional
right to assisted suicide in Montana, the
state has a duty to make sure that doctors
are willing to do the deed. Why? Doctors
have a monopoly on a limited commodity–the
practice of medicine–and hence they should
be able to be forced to participate in the
taking of patients' lives in assisted
suicide.
From his column:
[the link is to
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/big-sky-dilemma-must-doct_b_275034.html]
However, it [medical license and
professional autonomy] belies any claim that
doctors should have the same right to choose
their customers as barbers or babysitters.
Much as the government has been willing to
impose duties on radio stations (eg.
indecency codes, equal time rules) that
would be impermissible if applied to
newspapers, Montana might reasonably
consider requiring physicians, in return for
the privilege of a medical license, to
prescribe medication to the dying without
regard to the patient's intent.
This is taking the duty to die and
transforming it into a duty to kill. And it
reflects a profound misunderstanding of the
government's role. The government is not a
guarantor that, for example, anyone will
read this blog–which is a classic example of
a citizen exercising his First Amendment
right to free speech. The government,
absent a compelling interest, just can't
prevent me from writing. Similarly, if the
Montana Supreme Court goes the wrong way,
Montana law won't be able to prevent
physicians from engaging in assisted
suicide. But that doesn't mean it should be
able to compel them help kill.
The culture of death, however, brooks no
dissent. Apple continues:
The right to die is not an abstract
principle. This right -- or its absence --
has a profound effect on the fundamental
welfare of nearly every individual and
family in the nation during the most
vulnerable moments of their lives. If the
Montana Supreme Court guarantees citizens
the right to aid in dying, and I am both
hopeful and confident that the court will do
so, then it is also incumbent upon the
justices to ensure a mechanism by which
patients can exercise their rights. To do
otherwise -- to offer a theoretical right to
die that cannot be meaningfully exercised --
will be both a hollow gesture and a cruel
taunt to the terminally ill.
No, it is to support their intrinsic human
dignity and the Hippocratic "do no harm"
values of medicine. And under his theory, I
should be able to have the government force
everyone in the country to read this blog.
Don't think it can't happen here. Medicine
is being quickly transformed into an
order-taking technocracy. Victoria,
Australia law requires doctors to perform
abortions on request or refer to a doctor
who will. Assisted suicide legislators in
California tried to pass a law that would
have required doctors to sedate and
dehydrate terminally ill patients on demand.
