North Country Gazette



Eugenics American Style

Posted on Tuesday, 6 of May , 2008 at 7:18 pm

COMMENTARY

By Pamela F. Hennessy

The Associated Press reported on May 5, 2008 that an influential group of physicians has now recommended a sort of laundry-list of individuals who should not be given life-saving medical treatment, in the event of a pandemic. Made up of medical intelligentsia, the Center for Disease Control and the Department of Homeland Security, this reporting body has fingered lives they now consider unworthy should the bottom drop out. 

The average person expects that the government will contemplate the “ifs” when it comes to matters of national security and economic instability. But, did we ever expect that a body such as the Department of Homeland Security would consider the ifs in matters of healthcare crises? And, did any of us ever dream that such a department – one we associate with protecting our borders and national resources – would ever poke their collective nose into the business of making medical treatment decisions on the behalf of individual citizens?

Clearly, the government has completely given up any façade of attempting to protect our liberties or personal privacy. Things such as the USA Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the proposed Federal act, HR-1955 make it abundantly clear to anyone reading the news that the government has long since forgotten the benefits of liberty and its unalienable guarantee under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It would seem as though our own government is taking tremendous strides to own the lives, bodies and liberties of its citizenry through its brazen rewriting and indifference for our laws. And, though this report isn’t exactly a written law, its message is incredibly ominous.

During the years-long struggle to protect the life of Terri Schiavo (a profoundly brain-injured Florida woman who received nourishment and hydration through a gastric tube), many nationally-known and legally-active disability rights groups argued that hers was a case of trampled privacy and personal liberty. They would contend that it was the state’s Circuit Court – and not the Congress – that assaulted Terri’s privacy by making medical decisions for her, based on laws passed years after she lost the faculty to consent to such actions. Some supporters of Terri’s right to receive ordinary care have also pointed out that the court had ordered the removal of all nourishment and hydration – even if by mouth. This action is illegal under Florida’s statutes and hints at the case law that may have been left behind in the wake of the Schiavo matter. In Florida, at least, the supposition seems to be that the state owns your life and your body. The secondary presumption is that the government knows what’s best for you – irrespective of your own desires or needs.

By the time the mainstream media finished mangling the aspects of the legal battle and creating theatre of Terri’s circumstances, the average viewer – knowing painfully little of the true Constitutional questions of Terri’s case – were forced to decide that it was nothing more than folly.

It was a red carpet for the new age of aggressive eugenics.

Any government-sanctioned study or reporting means that would single out certain types of people for care-rationing should raise apprehension in all citizens who value their lives and their privacy. This is surely a injudicious and drunken step backwards into the eugenics the United States saw in the early 1900s and that the Third Reich embraced during their reign over Europe.

The pub-table or coffee-house exchanges that you have may take in the concept that living in a compromised position isn’t what you deem a good quality of life. That’s fine. Those decisions and opinions are yours. But, when the government encroaches those personally-held views and beliefs, we face the most vulgar demonstration of tyranny there could be. This, after all, embodies losing control of your life at the hands of people who cannot even fix our roads.

The list of innocent individuals considered undeserving of medical assistance, compiled by this not-so-altruistic group of experts includes:

- People older than 85- Severely burned patients – over the age of 60- Those with severe mental impairment – including Alzheimer’s disease - Those with chronic diseaseWhile these personal situations sound less than enviable, they are, indeed, personal situations. And, personal opinions, judgments and medical treatment decisions should remain the property of the individual and not the government.It’s easy to say you wouldn’t want that particular life for yourself and, although I may not agree with the rationale, I do understand it. The point is – do you want the government taking that posture for you? Without so much as a peep from you?Certainly, during times of crisis, those who are charged with sorting out enormous tribulations will have to apply enough common sense and human aptitude to cope in as benevolent and conscientious a way as possible. They always have in the past. So, why the need for a government-sanctioned report on the matter of care-rationing?

It’s quite difficult to nail down precisely what the motivation may be. Perhaps the story itself was just another way to chill down the American public in their empathy for elderly, ill or disabled people. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Perhaps another explanation is a bit more sinister.

I loathe to think that our own government has turned against its citizenry – seeing us now as tics on the organism and not individual persons, living a free and unfettered life. It would, indeed, seem that our own representative government has grown a deep-seated contempt for human beings they simply don’t see as fit anymore.

My take is that it doesn’t matter how you ended up. You ended up here. And, by being here, you have rights that don’t spend themselves out because of the complications that arise in your life. I always believed my country supported that idea and that people fought and died to protect the laws in agreement with that single, simple concept.

How lamentable that we are so forgetful. 5-06-08

Category: Disabled, Elder Care, Florida, Government, Health, Media, Nationwide, Opinion, Politics, Schiavo

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