Category: Commentary

Death by organ donation: Euthanizing patients for their organs gains frightening traction

Organ donation is a selfless gift to those on transplant wait lists.

But what if we euthanized patients by harvesting their organs?

USA Today

E. Wesley Eli

How should society respond to the increasingly long list of people waiting for organs on a transplant list? You’ve no doubt heard of “black market” organs in foreign countries, but are there other options that should be off the table? 

If you were on a transplant list, would it matter to you if the organ was obtained from a living person who died because of the donation procedure itself? What if she had volunteered? 

Your thoughts on this topic have implications beyond the issue of transplantation.

As the former co-director of Vanderbilt University’s lung transplant program and a practicing intensive care unit physician, I see organ donation an selfless gift to those approaching death on transplant wait lists. 

However, I’m wrestling with the emerging collision between the worlds of transplantation and euthanasia. . . [Full text]

GPs are ignoring democracy on abortion issues

Doctors’ group is demanding members fall into line without expressing their concerns

The Irish Times

Breda O’Brien

The board of the Irish College of General Practitioners, the professional body for general practice in Ireland, has refused for the second time requests from some of its members to hold an emergency general meeting to debate motions on abortion.  

Why is the ICGP so afraid of democracy? This is only the latest twist in a long-running saga that began when Simon Harris announced in a radio interview that abortion services were to be GP-led.

This was the first that GPs had heard of it. They were already over-worked, highly stressed and leaving the profession in droves. Many were stunned that there had been absolutely no consultation with GPs. . . [Full text]

Abortion and the medical profession

The Irish Times (Letter)
Reproduced with permission

Dr. Noreen O’Carroll

Sir, –

Dr Mark Murphy states that doctors who are opposed to abortion are in no way affected by the new service and their conscientious right to objection is respected.

In fact, doctors who have a conscientious objection are legally compelled to make arrangements for the transfer of care of the pregnant woman concerned to someone who will terminate the pregnancy. For doctors who cherish human life from its origins, that is tantamount to making them accomplices in taking the life of a developing baby.

This is an abuse of conscience and contrary to the practice of medicine in the spirit of the Hippocratic oath which prohibits the direct intentional taking of human life.

Dr Murphy, who you omitted to mention is on the staff of the department of general practice at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, is one of a minority of GPs in Ireland who have signed up to provide abortion services; the vast majority of GPs have not done so – 274 was the figure recently reported by the HSE.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of a pro-life group; although as an ordinary citizen, I have consistently advocated for the life of the developing baby to be legally protected and have voted accordingly.

– Yours, etc, Dr Noreen O’Carroll, (Lecturer in Medical Ethics, RCSI), Blackrock, Co Dublin.

The euthanasia slippery slope is here

National Post

Barbara Kay

Last week marked the four-year anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling that validated Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). At the time, many euthanasiasts confidently predicted there would be no “slippery slope” toward abuses. . . Federal Justice Minister David Lametti has said the government will continue to review the practice of MAID. . . Will he take into serious consideration the opinions of doctors who find the practice repugnant and contrary to conscience? . . .[Full text]

A proposal to reduce vaccine exemptions while respecting rights of conscience

Medical Xpress / The Conversation

Stacie Kershner, Daniel Salmon, Hillel Y. Levin and Timothy D. Lytton

Vaccine resistance is one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019, according to the World Health Organization. Here in the U.S., New York City is currently experiencing its worst outbreak of measles in decades, sickening scores of children in ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods.

Other clustered outbreaks of deadly and highly contagious, but vaccine-preventable, diseases are becoming frustratingly routine around the country. These outbreaks are caused by some parents’ decision to claim religious and philosophical exemptions to state mandates that children must be vaccinated in order to attend school.

In response, prominent health organizations and advocacy groups have called on state legislatures to eliminate religious and philosophical exemptions. . . .

. . . In a collaboration among legal scholars and public health experts, we have developed an alternative approach: a model law that aims to reduce the number of parents who decline to vaccinate their children while respecting freedom of conscience. . . [Full text]