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New Orleans -- citizens were deputized to defend hospital
Can't help but wonder why this didn't get media coverage:
"Hundreds of people were stranded in the hospital with no power to run lights or elevators and no running water. Anyone willing to carry a gun was deputized to watch the entrances as people broke into nearby buildings."
As far as the main story (doctor and two nurses arrested for allegedly killing patients with overdoses) goes ... it's pretty hard to picture the three just deciding, on a lark, to whack some patients during the story. It might be possible that they had some dying patients, not a snowball's chance in the infernal regions, and under those hellish conditions decided to let them go with no pain. When my ex was dying, if that'd been available, I'd have done it. Sometimes it's all over, and the only question is when and how painfully. In her case, cancer tumors were squeezing the breathing passages shut. No cure and no hope. An OD of painkillers isn't going to make any difference in the end. You can figure that anoxia will make them comatose, and it appeared to, but why not be sure?).
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The moral principle is simple: one may relieve discomfort, but one may NOT deprive another of life, by any direct action.
So, it's much better to let them suffer, so that... what?
This is another example of what is, in essence, a religious decree translated into secular law. From a traditional Christian view, the terminal patient is suffering for his sins, or for some deep, mystical purpose that only God knows about, and the person who euthanizes them is contravening God's wishes.
If it were truly a secular, ethical issue, shades of gray could be acknowledged, and whether it was right or not could be judged on a case by case basis.
"Your honor, he was suffering terribly from a really, really bad case of athelete's foot, so I felt obligated to hold a pillow over his face."
"Your honor, every single breath was agony, and there was absolutely no cure or hope for one, so I cut off the oxygen and substituted pure nitrogen."
Our laws today make it impossible to distiguish between murder and mercy.
If the NO case turns out to be on the "mercy" side, I hope that a jury has sense enough to let them go; in this case there would be a good reason to let them face whatever punishment God wishes them to have, instead of injecting Man's interpretation of it.
My sympathy on the loss of your wife. Cancer is a very nasty way to go.
At the same time, there's a significant body of moral discussion on euthanasia--which apparently occured in NO--and the discussion over Terri Schiavo was thorough.
The moral principle is simple: one may relieve discomfort, but one may NOT deprive another of life, by any direct action.