Re: euthanasia and death penalty
From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)
Wed Dec 6 14:29:19 2000
steve -
perhaps the reasons docs and other professionals seek an income are
things such as college for their kids - tuition here in the first world
is far from guaranteed.
art
At Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Steve & Eryl Raymond wrote:
>
>While I agree whole heartedly that it is barbaric that no-one cared
>for this man, the fact is that deep down humans still carry the
>genes of their barbaric forebears. It is only as societies become
>educated and sophisticated enough, and perhaps, adopt the
>Christian principles of loving their neighbours, that you see a
>difference in their attitude to individual suffering. The ironic thing
>though is that this world is divided into those societies which see
>suffering and make every effort to identify who is responsible for
>that person's suffering, so that with much huffing and puffing we
>wring our hands and jump on our crusading horses; and the other
>societies where suffering is so much a part of life that it is
>accepted as natural and to rail against it is pointless.
>
>While the first world worries about a seventy year old with mental
>incapacity choosing to commit suicide, the third world cannot
>come to grips with the fact that every few weeks in a squatter
>camp a fire wipes out the homes of two or three hundred people
>because candles and oil stoves are the only sources of light and
>heat. No-one is able to do anything about the fact that each shack
>is hard up against the neighbouring one so that when one burns so
>do all those around it. Building regulations which are standard in
>the first world have no meaning to those who are clinging on to any
>scrap of wood or corrugated iron they can obtain to create some
>sort of shelter. Couple this to the stories of flood heard earlier this
>year from Mozambique, which destroyed every last item of property
>that the poverty stricken may have managed to accumulate and it
>sort of puts into perspective the raising of hands in horror that
>seem to accompany stories of elderly neglect.
>
>I don't mean to diminish the sadness of the aged with Alzheimers,
>but it pales into insignificance when compared with the third world,
>where even having a doctor to diagnose Alzheimers in the first
>place is a luxury. Our perinatal mortality is ~40/1000 - why so
>high? Because the poverty stricken get no education, the
>uneducated can't follow logical thought, the poverty stricken cannot
>access even such medical care as is free for lack of transport, and
>the health care professional is more concerned about his own
>standard of living than about putting his training to good use.
>Where are the professionals who could staff third world hospitals?
>Even the locally trained soon disappear into private practice thus
>making themselves unavailable to the poverty stricken. Sure this is
>a political issue too, but sometimes it becomes personal.
>
>> In a message dated 12/6/00 12:28:05 AM, fseddon@interlog.com writes:
>>
>> << No one cared for his needs and he
>> would not be able to access euthanasia even in Holland. >>
>>
--
art fougner, md
A series of 1000 cases begins with but a single anecdote.
