Stephen Drake, the masterful research director for Not Dead Yet discovered that the blog for the American Journal of Bioethics featured an entry by Summer Johnson Ph.D., who came out supporting Warnock's call to euthanize people with dementia. Link to the Not Dead Yet blog:
http://notdeadyetnewscommentary.blogspot.com/2008/09/bioethics-blog-defends-warnocks-call.html
On September 19, I reported on this blog that Baroness Warnock(84), a leading ethicist in the UK was suggesting that people with dementia had a duty to die.
Link to my blog entry:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/09/dementia-sufferers-may-have-duty-to-die.html
Many people reacted by thinking these were just a few comments by a demented old woman, but in fact these are mainstream views among the euthanasia lobby who are busy planning for a day where they can obtain the "last-will-pill" or the "peaceful pill" and help mother out-of-her misery.
In case you think that Summer Johnson (pictured above) is possibly another thinker that is part of an extreme fringe, then just look at her bio:
Summer Johnson Ph.D. is the director of the Ethics in Novel Technologies, Research, and Innovation (ENTRI) program of the Alden March Bioethics Institute and a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Medicine. She is also the Director of Graduate Studies at AMBI at Albany Medical School.
Her bio goes on and is very impressive.
Thank you Summer Johnson for proving that Warnock is not alone.
The real question is: What are we going to do about this?
Just two things to add.
ReplyDeleteI found out after posting the item that neither Summer Johnson nor Glenn McGee works at AMBI any more.
And, in fairness, the followup post on the blog has Art Caplan's reaction to Warnock - which is a straight-out condemnation.
See: http://notdeadyetnewscommentary.blogspot.com/2008/09/followup-on-warnock-art-caplan-strongly.html
--Stephen Drake