This is an ugly story no matter how you parse it.

(1) A hurricane is not a good place to be. It's even less of a good place to be when the systems needed to both keep you alive and get you out are going down at the same time. When you're in intensive care, that's life.

(2) The NPR report is as is to be expected a drive-by shooting in its own right, dripping with miseracordium. After slinging innuendos for 3/4 of the article they get around to noting that:

No one has been charged in the investigation. And nowhere in the documents or in independent interviews conducted by NPR does anyone confirm seeing doctors or nurses administering lethal drugs.

There's an old saying that you can't walk a mile while looking through another man's shoes. Still, for the sake of discussion, assume the crisis euthanasia angle is true, and try to do so.

Imagine you are on skeleton staff in crisis mode under critical emergency conditions. Your patients life support systems are failing, with no reasonable hope for improvement, and you options for evacuation are zero.

As far as you can tell, to the best of your knowledge, your patients are about to die. What do you do? When do you do it? Do you discuss it with your colleagues beforehand? Did it happen?

"There's an old saying that you can't walk a mile while looking through another man's shoes."

I'm an avid hiker and I advise against covering your eyes with footwear of any kind.

Assume further that under the above conditions person Foo euthanized person Bar. The next question would be, what were the exact circumstances? For example, if person Bar were descending into unbearable pain due the systems failures, what would you do?

Once that data was known, the next question would be, what kind of sanction or punishment, if any, would be appropriate under the particular exact circumstances? We certainly can't have people running around euthanizing people simply because it's convenient for them.

And it is out of specific case law that we build our system if jurisprudence, not NPR horror stories. Of course, that doesn't prevent us from discussing it here ;-)

Back in the 80's I remember watching a video series put together by Francis and Edith Schaeffer of the L'abri Fellowship in Switzerland. I believe the name of the series was "What shall this man do?" It was a look into the ethical choices that society would have to choose between in the coming years. The themes were primarily to do with abortion on demand and euthanasia. The series tried to give some perspective on the value of human life. In a society, as human life becomes less and less valuable, it becomes easier and easier to make decisions regarding the most vulnerable among us. They become the first that are expendible in a society that devalues human life. He postulated that as abotion became more and more available on demand that euthanasia would be a natural progression for a society that had taken that step. He further postulated that once euthanasia became an acceptable means of dealing with the extreme cases like those in vegetative states and comas, that it would become increasingly more acceptable to add more criteria to the list of those who could be expendable like the very aged and the extremely disabled. He used the example of Nazi Germany that had many different criteria to do with who was not "pure" and so were expendible. It started once the Jews were dehumanized or devalued and therefore became expendible. Homosexuals, Jehovahs Witnesses and many other classes ended up on the list as the holocaust began in earnest.
Although shocking,what happened in New Orleans was entirely predictable given the cicumstances. This is only the tip of the oncoming iceberg which will put to the test the ethical and moral compasses of all society as we see burgeoning health care systems who's resources are stretched to the max. What kind of a future do we want for our children and grandchildren. Those who have made the decisions regarding abortion on demand and are presently discussing doctor assisted suicides are setting the table for a future far more shocking than what took place after Hurricane Katrina in the hospital.
What Shall This Man Do?
Maranatha

The problem is, Maranatha, that you have not established the pre-conditions for your argument. What happened in New Orleans on this matter at this point is unclear, all we have so far is a lot of hearsay.

Until we have further information, not speculative reports, it seems to me that bringing up cases of particularly unethical behaviour in counter-argument to cases in which the ethical issues are as yet not clear is disingenuous. It is not resonable to make inferences about our normal operating jurisprudence based on crisis emergency situations.

Marantha- Some of us who support abortion on demand and a patients right's to die also oppose the death penalty on moral or ethical grounds.

Speaking as such a person please let me assure you that we do believe that all human life is precious.

And some of us who don't support abortion simply on demand and do support a patient's right to die don't oppose the death penalty on moral or ethical grounds.

But face it, if we all agreed, life would be boring, and the half of the population that make a living out of disagreeing would be out of work, resulting in major global economic collapse and the outbreak of war in a significant portion of the marginal countries, with possible escalation in global nuclear armageddon.

See, I can write like NPR too.

The age of pix n' mix ideology is upon us. It's probably a good thing.

Don't assume ideology, Jose. It could be pix n' mix pragmatism. And that's probably usually a good thing, as you say.

Yet I remain unconvinced that it's the pix n' mix part that's a new age. My understanding is that under the hood most people, even the quite religious, are quite pragmatic and tend to be mischeveous in their deep personal irreverence towards being told what to do when they don't already agree.

The new age seems to me to be more a matter that the veneer of authority is becomming increasingly transparent. The dogmatic ideologies are being challenged by the empircal pragmatists like never before (although the famous blasphemers Socrates, Jesus, and Galileo did set the pace).

In 1979, doctors offered to murder my son.

Long story. Give me a week and I'll tell you about it. It will take me that long to write 2 paragraphs.

I have in my life heard people who would now be a century old or older (if it weren't for the fact that they are now dead) say that when they had children there was basically an understanding they had with their doctors that if a baby was born horribly incapacitated they would, as the phrase went, "drop the baby on it's head".

Say my mother wanted to have N children, and one of them X was born horribly incapacitated. Say they dropped baby X on its head and she tried again and that baby X' is me. Now, if she had behaved otherwise, I would be that horribly incapacitated baby X of N, and I'd rather be X' of N.

How would you feel if you were that patient in an isolated hospital under emergency circumstances if you were descending into unbearable pain and there was no hope of you surviving six hours anyway?

Ethics, along with metaphysics, epistimology, and logic, makes up axiology, the oldest part of philosophy. I think studying ethical dilemas is intersting. Your mileage may vary.

Some of us who support abortion on demand and a patients right's to die also oppose the death penalty on moral or ethical grounds.

Speaking as such a person please let me assure you that we do believe that all human life is precious.

Well, except for human life not defined as human, or those deemed to be living without "dignity".

There's a good reason "leftist" and "confused" long ago became synonyms.

Jose,

"The age of pix n' mix ideology is upon us. It's probably a good thing."

You have never written a more indicative of statement of yourself. Ideas versus reality ... they are different. And no, it's not a good thing if you can't distinguish between them.

Well technically, you can't have human life that is not defined as human life, by definition.

But seriously, the issue of being *deemend* to be living without dignity, *by*others* is the crux of the matter, as you mention Ol Hoss.

It's one thing entirely if an adult human of sound mind and terminally failing body makes a decision about how they want to die.

It's something else entirely for someone to tell someone else they are beneath the dignity to live.

(Modulo some notorious bad guys, of course, which is where the death penalty comes in.)

Vitruvius-

I know that religious people are capable of thinking for themselves. Religions are usualy good things.

Religous dogma is a different story. Many of the world's major religons need to jettison some archaic dogma over the next generation if they're to retain their relevance in people's lives. This isn't just a religion/athiesm tug of war. There's plenty of less dogmatic and progressive sects in all major religions that are only too happy to recruit new members from the old school.

I agree with that statement in general Jose, with one proviso. Do not assume that what you call "progressive" is not an ideology onto itself. Transnational progressives certainly are.

Canada is quite a free country by historic standards. I'm in favour of liberty, so I like that. Some of our freedoms are threatened. I want to conserve those freedoms.

Some of our freedoms, like how to die, and still denied, and some people want to conserve that. There I disagree in the name of liberty.

So, am I a conservative liberal or a liberal conservative?

ol hoss "Well, except for human life not defined as human, or those deemed to be living without "dignity".

I'll jump over that first hula hoop but allow me to reassure you that right to die is strictly for people who wish to take their own life. That's not a slippery slope that's an ideological trenchline.

I don't see how life is sanctified by turning a dying person into a suffering, overly medicated, cyborg against their will for as long as modern technology will allow. That isn't mercy, that's a monstrous abomination to life and a violation to personal liberty.

Vitruvious

"The problem is, Maranatha, that you have not established the pre-conditions for your argument."

I didn't realize that I was in an argument, I was simply making a comment that relates to the situation in the post.

Now, if you want, for the sake of argument, let us take it away from the Katrina situation and assume the same circumstances in a theoretical disaster situation.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that the staff in our theoretical disaster, similar to the one that this hospital was in, out of desperation decided to euthanize patients.

My point was this; that decision has been made that much easier to make because of the decisions regarding the value of human life that have preceded it. As we move ahead in this "brave new world" and continue to have doctors, courts and rights groups, "progressively" devalue human life through abortion, doctor assisted suicide etc, then it will become easier and easier to make the case for euthanasia in extreme circumstances. Recent history has taught us that this is a slippery slope. Once the decision has been made that human life is expendible, then it is easier and easier to make the case for others who are expendible.

I know this isn't very palitable and no one wants to admit that we might head down this road. I would argue that we have been on this road for many years already. The question is "How far will we jouney down this road before we turn back?" The sanctity of life and security of the person are two of the most fundamental rights there are. They are part what set us apart from the animals and make us truly human.

Back to the Katrina situation. My heart goes out to the staff in that hospital and as has been pointed out, no charges have been laid. At this point we are dealing with rumor. If these rumors prove to be true and charges are warranted, I hope that those who are charged will include the Mayor of New Orleans, The Governor of the state of Louisiana and the director of Fema. Those who were in positions of responsibility failed the people in this hospital and other facilities as well by not evacuating them in a timely manner. This was not an eathquake that struck without warning nor was it a situation that had not been projected as this kind of a disaster if a cat 4 or 5 struck. The evidence of neglect lies in the pictures of hundreds of school buses that were not mobilized in an evacuation plan that had been rehearsed hardly a year before. The doctors and nurses should never have had to be in a position of making these kind of decisions had the authorities not failed them through inability to act on a plan.
Maranatha

Again I broadly agree, Jose, but it is a slippery slope, because you have to define "take their own life." If in unbearable pain knowing I have only six hours to live without hope I beg and plead someone to put me out of my misery, am I still taking my own life? Just how much help am I allowed, in my moment of maximal final distress?

Look folks, if this were an easy ethics problem, it would have been solved long ago and nobody would be debating it any more.

Good point, Maranatha, that was presumptious of me to assume you were arguing when you were just commenting. Indeed, I have used just that counter-argument before elsewhere. Sorry.

Meanwhile, I agree in general with your position in your latest comment. Still, we can't charge the Mayor of New Orleans, the Governor of the state of Louisiana, and the director of FEMA with euthanasia (it would probably be manslaughter, wouldn't it?) unless there's evidence they did that. And there isn't.

It's all well and good to claim that the "authorities" didn't do all that well, and I can argue against that, but I should also note that one can't but help but argue that a lot of the ordinary citizens didn't do all that well either. A lot of grasshoppers should have been listening to the ants.

Jose

You live in a contradiction. I don't see how you can have it both ways.
Either human life is precious and to be afforded protections based on the intrinsic value of our humanity
...Or you can pick and choose who has value enough to live in your world under your values
Who gives you the right to pick and choose who will live and who will die? Who are you to decide or define who is human?
Maranatha

Vitruvius- "Do not assume that what you call "progressive" is not an ideology onto itself. Transnational progressives certainly are."

Absolutely.

"So, am I a conservative liberal or a liberal conservative?"

Well since you've already outlined your views clearly there's isn't much need to scratch our heads over labels.

When I was a teenager I used to play Dungeons and Dragons. As part of the game you assume the role of a character. Part of the game's rules meant choosing an "alignment". There were nine alignments to choose from ranging from Chaotic Good, to True Neutral to Lawful Evil. Players were expected to roleplay their characters according to their designated alignment. The game also had an extensive set of rules that dictated the game effects of straying from one's alignment. Dungeon Masters were encouraged to create graphs representing how well characters adhered to their alignment over time and to warn them when they were nearing the point of incurring penalties for straying.

Most new players made half assed attempts to follow these rules at first. We were after all 13 year old geeks with a brand new toy. However after a while we realized how absurd alignment rules were and jettisoned them completely.

I suspect we're nearing a similar point with the real world's alignment system.

I doubt it. You've forgotten the endochrine system.

And compare the "euthanizing" of these innocent patients with the rapist and murderer on Death Row in California who they can't execute yet! See here: http://tinyurl.com/fb35u
And right shall be wrong and wrong shall be right!
I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I don't normally do that so I'm hoping Kate will cut me some slack. I just find the contrast between the convicted murderer story and Kate's post to be thought-provoking. Here's an excerpt from what the murderer did:
The day of the murder, Ortega tricked Terri into accompanying him and Morales in Ortega’s car to a remote area near Lodi, California. There, Morales attacked Terri from behind and attempted to strangle her with his belt. Terri struggled and the belt broke in two. Morales then took out a hammer and began hitting Terri in the head with it. She screamed for Ortega to help and attempted to fight off the attack, ripping her own hair out of her scalp in the struggle. Morales beat Terri into unconsciousness, crushing her skull and leaving 23 identifiable wounds in her skull. Morales took Terri from the car and instructed Ortega to leave and come back later. Ortega left and Morales then dragged Terri face-down across the road and into a vineyard. Morales then raped her while she lay unconscious. Morales then started to leave, but went back and stabbed Terri four times in the chest to make sure she died. Morales then left Terri, calling her “a fucking bitch,” as he walked away. Terri died from both the head and chest wounds. Her body was left in the vineyard naked from the waist down, with her sweater and bra pulled up over her breasts. Morales confessed to killing Terri to a jailhouse informant, as well as to his girlfriend and his housemate.

Vitruvious,

Hey, no problem.

As for the mayor, the governor and Fema making or not making decisions, manslaughter works for me. Having said that, it doesn't really matter too much. Criminal negligence causing death may be closest to the truth of the situation. The point is that hundreds of people died and some of them needlessly, given that there was forewarning and a window of opportunity to act on a plan that was in place. It seems that all too often, those who are culpable are not held responsible. The school buses are evidence that somebody or "many somebodies" failed the most vulnerable citizens in New Orleans. If I remember right, the evacuation plan was meant to move out the residents of the nursing homes and hospitals as high priority on the list.

As for the grasshoppers, they had plenty of warning and if they had worked together like "ants" to evacuate neighbors, friends and family, the loss of life would have been at a minimum and we wouldn't have been hearing about thousands of citizens terrorized by gangs in the dome. I know all of this is hindsight and I live several thousand miles away so why do I even care? Perhaps because "life" is valuable and precious. We now have have the opportunity to learn some important lessons about mistakes made that never ought to be repeated again.
Maranatha

"We were after all 13 year old geeks with a brand new toy. However after a while we realized how absurd alignment rules were and jettisoned them completely."

Boy child. When we were as young as you are now .. we thought the same (most of us). Most of us outgrew naivete ... maybe in a few years for you.

I followed this story when it first broke via the UK bird cage liner The Daily Mail. The story was supposedly relayed to The Daily Mail by a relative of an "emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen". Google Mr. McQueen and you will find some interesting stuff, including the fact that he was not an emergency official.

-------Daily Mail story excerpt -----
In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, one New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.

Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials. One emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."
------------ end of excerpt --------

Which doctor? Which "local government official(s)" ?? Why haven't they been identified by the voracious media by now?

So someone of questionable authority has someone (estranged wife or relative) call up The Daily Mail with this story of horror... uh-huh. --apparently the Daily Mail is UK's answer to the National Enquirer.

Not a real credible story, so far, right? And of course the story has to break via someone who knows someone in the UK, and NOT via any of the hoards of hungry reporters that were on the ground in NOLA. Yeah right...

Anyways, I chased this one down via all angles I could at the time - including someone who had provided a report on the story to a medical blog, that published and then retracted the story. I e-mailed that someone asking for further info on what they knew as I wanted to debunk it if it was a fraud - and guess what - there was no reply from said 'someone'.

I also posted a comment on The Daily Mail's comment area at the bottom of the story, challenging the veracity of the story and suggesting that the source of their article seemed dubious, at best. The Daily Mail's comment policy is to moderate all comments before they appear on their site. They never posted my comment nor did they reply to my challenge to the story via the valid e-mail address I provided.

Also - take a good look at the comments that did make it through moderation to be posted to the bottom of the story - notice that all the comments carry either outrage or sorrow. Note that no comment challenges the veracity of the story... uh huh. Let's never question the integrity of one's bird cage liner, no...

On September 13th, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann interviewed DR. Norman McSwain, Chief of Trauma Surgery, Charity Hospital, New Orleans, and asked specifically what he thought of the story:

--- Oblermann transcript excerpt ---

OLBERMANN: There was an extraordinary story in a tabloid newspaper from London, England, on Sunday, and to my knowledge, it‘s gotten no coverage here, because it‘s built largely on anonymous quotes. We don‘t want to make too much out of it.

But the gist of this report from this newspaper, which is called “The Mail on Sunday,” it quotes a doctor, it does not name the doctor, at a New Orleans hospital, does not name the hospital, who supposedly said that in the wake of the hurricane, her hospital was basically under attack by looters, there was no help coming, and she euthanized some of her terminal patients.

Let me just read some of the quotes that were attributed to the unnamed doctor at the unnamed hospital. “I injected morphine into those patients who were dying and in agony. If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul. This was not murder, this was compassion. Under normal circumstances, some could have lasted several days. But when the power went out, we had nothing.”

Again, this paper does not say what hospital, it didn‘t mention Memorial Medical, it didn‘t mention your hospital, no names at all. For all we know, the quotes and the stories are fictitious. But I have to ask you, under the circumstances, are you aware of even the possibility that this could be true, or even plausible?

MCSWAIN: Well, certainly, I know that it didn‘t happen in Tulane Hospital, and to—and I don‘t think it happened in Charity Hospital either. So I would say that they‘re untrue at least for those two hospitals, the ones I was actively involved in.

Is it plausible? I guess it is. But a physician has taken an oath,

the Hippocratic Oath, to preserve life and heal and not cause death. There

if the physician is in such a situation that he knows a whole bunch of patients—or one even, one patient, may die a horrible death because of rising waters, and they may drown, it might be a compassionate decision on the physician‘s part to euthanize the patient.

I‘m a little bit skeptical of that story, however, because there are many drugs and medications available to physicians to euthanize patients if they chose to do that. And—but morphine is not one of the—certainly not a drug that I would use if I was in that situation.

OLBERMANN: And again, and again, this isn‘t to give credibility to it, but just the idea that you pointed out, that the—that what might be useful in any situation in a hospital under those circumstances, the proper, if that‘s the right word for it, the proper medication might have been two floors away. Who knows?

In any event, Dr. Norman McSwain, chief of trauma surgery at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, great thanks for your time, and great thanks for what you did during the peak of the crisis.

MCSWAIN: Thank you, sir. Appreciate being here, Keith.

------------------- END of Excerpt ---------

Also back in September, perhaps early October, there was also a kerfuffle when a Fox News reporter reporting live, unexpectedly mentioned the claim of euthanasias taking place. The reporter was shushed off the air with the shocked anchor making some excuse that this was still an unconfirmed report. No further mention of the story was made on Fox that day and AFAIR, the reporters comments never made it into any transcripts.

I suggested back then and I continue to suggest now that this story is BUNK until concretely proven otherwise by either confessions or the laying of charges. Its my belief that this story was yet another NOLA urban legend let loose upon the foolish masses. But unlike the several other BUNK stories - the crocodile/alligator/whatever; massive increase in gun sales; rapes in the Superdome; etc, this horrible story won't go away.

So fellow SDA readers, I ask you to file this one under BUNK until it is proven otherwise.

/damnIshouldgetmyownblogoneday

Vitruvius "You've forgotten the endochrine system."

Only a head in the sand reactionary on the right would endorse a US-style endochrine system when its been proven time and time again that they don't work.

I think that if they did euthanize dying patients, they ought to get a bravery medal.

Jose,
RE: February 22, 2006 09:07 PM

I'll repeat my earlier post of February 22, 2006 11:03 PM It may have got lost in the shuffle

You live in a contradiction. I don't see how you can have it both ways.
Either human life is precious and to be afforded protections based on the intrinsic value of our humanity
...Or you can pick and choose who has value enough to live in your world under your values
Who gives you the right to pick and choose who will live and who will die? Who are you to decide or define who is human?
Maranatha

This was a hurricane not a friggin earth quake or meteorite that gives no warning.

The hospitals first order of business should be to evacuate inland especially those in intensive care.

also if they are in pain give em morphine. I've known more than one person in intensive care who came out. Luckily there were no progressive lefties on duty at the time.

Thank you drWright
I was making the same point earlier, first out on an exacuation order are the infirm, the invalid and the aged as they deserve the help and protection as those who cannot help themselves.

As you said, there was adequate notice. I think there was 24-48 hours notice that this was going to be a cat 4 or5 and the evac plan was in place and had been rehearsed about a year before. The sight of all those yellow roofs of the school buses under water was damning evidence of incompetance at the higher levels in executing a plan. The fault, if there is any, that caused the doctors and nurses of this hospital and other facilities to be put in this position lies with those whose charge it was to execute the plan...the Mayor, the Governor and FEMA Head.
Maranatha

I read this in my Newsweek...so long ago I have trashed it.

Kyala:...you don't actually mean that DO YOU???

come on!!!

Urban myth???...maybe !! ??

*Kyla...sorry for sp error....