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Title: Culture of Death : The Assault on Medical Ethics in America by Wesley J. Smith ISBN: 1-893554-06-6 Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: April, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.73 (11 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Culture of Death
Comment: This is a well written exposition of frightening changes in the values and practices of the medical profession. I found myself reading only a little at a time simply because the subject is painful to think about. It describes the development of a "culture," that is a school of thought and practice, that places little or no value on human life as such.
Its major strength is in the lucid discussion of intellectual developments and their effects in practice. It also relates many concrete cases and shows their inter-relationship with ideas and their acceptance.
The main weakness I see is that there is little consideration of the economics involved except for accasional references to managed care versus fee for service insurance. There is no discussion of the fact that traditional medical ethics, including the Hippocratic oath, arose in a world of private patients. When people chose (and paid) the physicians that treated them, the medical profession could hardly exist without patients' confidence that their interests would be paramount to those they gave such power over their lives. The treatment of those who couldn't pay helped assure those who could. The advent of insurance provided by third parties, employers or governments, was bound to change things. Few people can choose a job based on whether the insurance provided will pay the doctor of their choice. With payments coming from an insurer not selected by their patients, medical practitioners' loyalties had to be divided. We could expect thinkers to rationalize the division.
Rating: 4
Summary: Essential work on euthanasia, end-of-life care, etc.
Comment: Wesley Smith has written a readable treatise on euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide (murder), the devaluation of the handicapped, and the idiocy of the animal "rights" movement. If you are interested in these areas, or writing a paper or researching an article on these fields, this book is essential reading.
Smith has termed the assault on basic human values led by the twisted values of the Kevorkians and Singers as the "culture of death". This term is accurate and portrays this sub-culture as it really is.
Smith starts with cases of neglect where physicians or others try to kill or let die others due to a variety of reasons. Some of these cases are disturbing in hind-sight because you invariably can see the Ghosts of the Nazi ethicists lurking behind the scenes. Smith then includes chapters on euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, withholding life-sustaining measures (like food and water), and finishes with chapters on organ donation and animal "rights". He presents lots of evidence and direct quotes from both sides. His treatment of the legal cases and legal reasoning involving these issues is especially strong.
Now, on a personal level, I am a physician who deals with these issues daily and there is truly a culture of death out there. Every day I fight a mostly losing battle with a system that argues more about pharasaical "rights" than what is best for the patient. Recently some family members of a dying patient kept vigil on a comatose relative so that he wouldn't "suffer" from the nurses turning him and wiping his butt after bowel movements. Mercifully, he died before I had to call in the police to remove them from the hospital. The family somehow felt that their "rights" to decide their loved one's care trumped common sense and decency.
One fault of this book is that it doesn't discuss the greatest culprit in the devaluation of life - abortion. "I will give no deadly drug to any - even if it is asked for. Similarly, I will not aid a woman to procure abortion." These lines from the Hippocratic Oath were the bulwark of medical ethics. Most doctors no longer take this oath, but a bastardized, liberal monstrosity that is meaningless. My advice is if your doctor doesn't believe the original oath then find another, because he doesn't have your best interests at heart.
In short, this book lacks pro-life information essential to this topic. That's why I gave it 4 stars. However, it does an excellent job showing how our society devalues life in the areas of euthanasia, physician-assisted murder, and the harm that the animal movement is doing to human beings.
Rating: 5
Summary: It is the doom of men (and women) to forget.
Comment: Let's think about the Schiavo case for a moment here. Not to be completely political but frank: what is the value of a life? Can you buy it back? Can you sell it?
Dare we call it worthless?
If only one of us was 'written off', then what about the rest of us? Aren't we all in the same boat? If we believe that some people can't be saved, that they are better off dead, how close are we to Euthanasia? To a new Nazi or Communist Regime?
Questions that should be asked, if I dare say so myself.
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Title: Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder by Wesley J. Smith ISBN: 1890626481 Publisher: Spence Pub Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics by Leon R. Kass ISBN: 1893554554 Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title:Facing Future ASIN: B00000JFG3 Publisher: Mountain Apple Company Pub. Date: 01 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $22.99 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $18.39 |
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Title: Logical Properties: Identity, Existence, Predication, Necessity, Truth by Colin McGinn ISBN: 0199262632 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism by Michael C. Rea ISBN: 0199247609 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: November, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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