Idaho Futile Care Bill

Wesley Smith is busy warning the culture of how the current trends are leading us to losing true freedom, ignoring our humanity and in this comment, losing our life - without consent.

A recent trend in medical ethics is to deny people basic medical care, not because the care is of benefit to the patient, but because the patient is viewed as futile. Idaho is debating a futile care bill that will give the power to the physician, without consent, to remove life-sustaining care.

Futile care proponents are also quick to compare actual futile treatments to basic care provisions, such as fluids, food, and oxygen. Nobody is advocating that the medical system provide medical treatment to a person who will not actually benefit from the treatment or offer treatment when the burden imposed by the treatment significantly outweighs its benefit.

Futile care proponents will exagerate the demand for treatments that everyone will consider non-obligatory in order to convince legislators that extreme measures are necessary to ration health care.

These same futile care proponents think that intentionally dehydrating someone who is not otherwise dying is simply withdrawing medical treatment. Someone should deny them drink for 10 days and see how they feel.

The real reason for this new push to deny medical care is to save money, and a fear of the aging population creating a demand on the system that cannot be sustained. By using the concern about money and by comparing truly futile medical treatment to normal care provisions, the futile care proponents are scaring legislators into thinking that it is necessary to remove our rights in order to impose this form of medical rationing.

Link to Wesley Smith's blog comment on Idaho's Futile Care Bill:
http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2009/03/idaho-futile-care-bill-doctors-can.html