Can Catholic Hospitals Really Interfere With Colorado's 'Medical Aid In Dying' Law ? So Far, Yes.

 Above left above: Dr. Barbara Morris dismissed from her job by Centura Health for planning to assist cancer patient Neil Mahoney (center) to end his life under Colorado's Medical aid in Dying Act.  Brittany Maynard  (right)  had to travel to Oregon in November 2014 to use the state's medical aid in dying law to gain relief from terminal brain cancer. 

The issue of medical assistance for terminally ill patients has again come to the fore, this time here in Colorado. In a Denver Post story yesterday (p. 6A) we learned Dr. Barbara Morris had been terminated for offering assistance (under Colorado's Medical Aid in Dying Law) to a stage IV cancer patient,  Cornelius Mahoney.   The firing was done compliments of Centura Health Corp., which Roman Catholic owners now fully or partially control 5 of 10 major hospitals in the state.  

The recent incident brought to mind earlier interference into personal moral choice with brain cancer patient Brittany Maynard 5 years ago.

Few of us can forget Brittany Maynard's decision  to pull up stakes and travel to Oregon  to avail herself of that state's medical assistance in dying law. She chose this rather than endure the terminal stages of brain cancer. Brittany specifically moved to Oregon to become a resident to be able to make the  decision to end her suffering and carry it out without legal sanctions.    As I wrote in a blog post at the time, after the Vatican's castigation of her decision as "absurd and reprehensible":

"Do the judgmentalists really understand what happens to people in the terminal phases of brain cancer? Do they appreciate that the victims become essentially vegetables incapable of consciousness or the most rudimentary thought - with no knowledge of their surroundings and all the time in unbearable pain as the tumor generates enormous pressures inside their craniums. Are they aware of how all control of bodily functions is lost, and the person becomes a writhing mass of flesh that must be cleaned up almost on the hour else is left lying in their own bodily waste? Are they aware the person's mouth must be wiped constantly to prevent the drool from pooling on the mattress?"

Among the codswallop trotted out at the time was recycled RC doctrinal  bunkum from Melissa Harris- Perry  that "there is redemptive value in undeserved suffering".  Hence,  Brittany ought to have been willing to go through the possibly months (or years) long suffering of terminal brain cancer including loss of all control of her bladder, brain and bowels. to expiate her "sins." 

Evidently, Perry and the Vatican's fossils (in the Curia)  who condemned her decision as "absurd and reprehensible" would have preferred she'd been reduced to a drooling vegetable, with nonstop incontinence issues, and not even cognizant of those around her.  They'd not even grant her the dignity in death we allot to a sick pet dog suffering from terminal bone cancer.  But this is how screwed up their morality is.   It is why it has been encapsulated as "premoral" by ethicist Cheryl Mendelson in her book, 'The Good Life'.  Therein she notes that irrationality is a prime attribute of premoral thinking and the premoral mind - which typically denies any role for individual conscience. 

So what is the alternative, rational approach to morality?  It is “moral provisionalism” or provisional ethics, as described by Michael Shermer ('The Science of Good and Evil'). According to Shermer:

"Provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground between absolute and moral relative systems. Provisional moral principles are applicable to most people, for most circumstances, for most of the time - yet flexible enough to account for the wide diversity of human behavior"

 Contrary to the Vatican's daft claim of "absurdity" in Brittany's choice,  the moral provisionalist only recognizes such in allowing a sentient being to descend into a totally vegetative state lacking any life quality - with excruciating pain to go with it. Hence, Brittany's choice to end her life is a greater good over merely existing in a debased vegetative condition based on the specious presumption of "sanctity of life" demanded indiscriminately for any and all conditions.  

Nor is there any need for any "redemptive" BS because "sin" itself is a macguffin to keep humans in an inferior state as opposed to attaining mastery over their lives. In the case of Catholics, for example, confession ensures a constant "sin treadmill"  where the person is never really free of the absolution of the assorted priests he sees over a lifetime. He keeps on "sinning" and then keeps coming back to confess them for relief - or "salvation".  Thus, sin is also a ridiculous concept. As my atheist friend Rick put it: "How can a finite glob of ambulatory flesh "offend" a supposedly infinite Being? It's totally ludicrous."
 
I mention this because the "redemptive"  baloney  has also been invoked  by Centura Health in its decision  to fire a doctor (Barbara Morris),  who had  planned to attend to a stage IV cancer patient, Neil Mahoney.    According to the earlier cited Denver Post piece:

 "In a letter hand -delivered to Morris, who has worked in the health care system since 2013, Centura president Vance Maclaren said she had violated the firm's governing rules" i.e. "embodied in The Ethical and Religious Directives For Catholic Health Care Services."

The letter went on to say:

"Rather than encouraging patient Cornelius Mahoney to receive care consistent with that doctrine or transferring care to other providers, you have encouraged a morally unacceptable option"

And what, pray tell, was the option she ought to have selected?  We learn the answer from the document cited by the Post:

"Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering."

In other words, be accepting of a nice, tortuous and prolonged demise where you will be barfing and shitting your bedclothes and everything else most of the time - even as you're barely conscious of much more than the odor and filth. A dog in this country deserves better and gets it, but not terminal human cancer patients.  Those the church beckons to roil in their "redemptive" suffering for whatever...imaginary sins they committed in the past. 

But let's cut to the chase and drop the bafflegab and formalist bullshit and "doctrine" cited by Centura.  As the Denver Post piece observes (ibid.)  the prime culprit is the Trump administration's recent imposition of "religious freedom"  edicts embodied in its 'Denial Of Care Rule' for medical providers. Below an excerpt from the piece:

What is this so-called "conscience rule" about?   Archdiocese of Denver spokesperson Mark Haas put it thusly (ibid.):

"Asking a Christian hospital to play any role in violating the dignity of human life is asking the Christian hospital to compromise its values and core mission. This is not the hospital forcing its beliefs on others but rather having outside views forced upon it."

Which is pure balderdash. First, the top sentence means the "Christian" hospital actually invests more "dignity" in a contorted, tortured, puking and nonstop- shitting person than for that person to die with dignity.  How is that for twisted logic?  Sophistry anyone?   As Florida Lawyer Robert Rivas pointed out, skewering this claptrap (ibid.):

"When you look closely at what they're saying, it turns out they really want to be empowered to force their religion on others."

  As for the last line of Haas' statement, that also is a terrific excuse for running roughshod over a state law which entitles any Coloradan suffering from the final stages of a disease to get final respite at any hospital.    In reality, the only "outside force" at work here, providing leverage (empowerment) for this sanctimonious refusal, is the nation's pussy grabber- in -chief, Dotard Trump.  This asswipe excuse for a president is their moral dictator-   like he is now for the evangelicals, e.g.



As Americans United CEO Rachel Laser put it, after this farce of a conscience rule was ordained by the nation's number one sexual predator,  liar, grifter and con man:


"This is the Trump administration's most dangerous attempt yet to weaponize religious freedom, and we won't stand for it."

And it's now rearing its ugly, deformed head in challenging the state's medical aid -in- dying act passed by a large majority of Colorado voters. So we are clear on this politically implemented rule, no matter how its gussied up in doctrine or dogma: 

"It invites any health care worker - including doctors, nurses, paramedics, administrators and even clerical staff- to deny medical treatment and services to patients because of personal religious or moral belies."

This is exactly what's happened here in Colorado, never mind the "redemptive suffering" malarkey.   Thousands of  terminal or near terminal cancer patients are hoping this religious rebellion based on bogus first amendment sophistry can be nipped in the bud.  Else, patients will find other ways - not medically or legally sanctioned - to end their misery.   As Dr. Morris explained to the Post:

"These are complex, ill patients. We have a pretty big thing n medicine about not abandoning patients, so that's a pretty big issue."

In her lawsuit filed with Mr. Mahoney, she argues that "Centura's policy prohibting doctors from prescribing aid in dying drugs is broader than state law allows."

With which I concur.  And that's why I do hope the state AG joins the suit, especially as an ancillary state law mandates that "health care facilities may not limit or otherwise exercise control  over a physcian's medical judgement" . 

 We cannot allow religions which now - via mergers and other operations -control so many hospitals, to have the final say on a citizen's well being. And that well being includes his or her choice to shuffle this mortal coil without undergoing "redemptive" torture. 

See also:

If Trump Gets Another 4 Years: Look For Religious ...

Let Brittany Maynard Die In Peace

I really get sick and tired of armchair moralists trying to pass judgment on others' choices - when if they had to walk in their shoes - I seriously doubt they'd evince the same degree of self-righteousness. Such is the case now with 29-year old Brittany Maynard who has chosen to end her life on Nov. 1 (in Oregon) rather than endure the final hideous stages of terminal brain cancer.

Many objectors aren't even aware of the provisions of the Oregon law which requires:

1) Person must be at least 18 years of age.

2) Must be an Oregon resident.

3) Must be capable of making the decision for themselves

4) Must have been diagnosed as terminally ill or dying within 6 months. (Two doctors have to confirm it)

5) Must report the event to police.

Other nattering nabobs confuse the physician assisted practice (to shorten agony from physical complications)  in Oregon with physician -forced suicide, such as Jack Kevorkian used to perform. As Ethics professor Arthur Caplan pointed out on Melissa Harris Perry's show on Saturday,  there is no comparison. At NO stage is the person forced to do anything. The choice is entirely left to her and she can choose to opt out any time. She's merely provided the wherewithal and she administers it herself.

Brittany specifically moved to Oregon to become a resident to be able to make this decision and carry it out without legal sanctions.  Given she;s well past "legal age" and is currently in possession of her faculties, I don't believe it's anyone else's business what she does. (And btw, images shown on one evening newscast disclosed the tumor already occupying something like one fourth of her brain.)

Do the judgmentalists really understand what happens to people in the terminal phases of brain cancer? Do they appreciate that the victims become essentially vegetables incapable of consciousness or the most rudimentary thought - with no knowledge of their surroundings and all the time in unbearable pain as the tumor generates enormous pressures inside their craniums. Are they aware of how all control of bodily functions is lost, and the person becomes a writhing mass of flesh that must be cleaned up almost on the hour else is left lying in their own bodily waste? Are they aware the person's mouth must be wiped constantly to prevent the drool from pooling on the mattress? No, I don't suppose they are, else they'd not be so cavalier in passing judgment

One of the aspects discussed on Melissa Harris Perry Saturday is the claim by religionists that "there is redemptive value in undeserved suffering" and Brittany ought to be willing to go through it to expiate her sins. Of course, this is total hogwash - but then I am coming at it from the POV of a Materialist and long time atheist. As noted in prior posts "sin" is an invention of the religious clerical elites to try to keep accounts of human transgressions on some spiritual balance sheet, but in reality what one calls "sin" is a subjective moral judgment that can vary from culture to culture, religion to religion. (E.g. Catholicism condemns masturbation and artificial birth control as "mortal sins", most Protestant religions don't.).

"Sin" then  is a macguffin invented by religions to keep humans in an inferior state as opposed to attaining mastery over their lives. In the case of Catholics, for example, confession ensures a constant "sin treadmill"  where the person is never really free of the absolution of the assorted priests he sees over a lifetime. He keeps on "sinning" and then keeps coming back to confess them for relief - or "salvation".  Thus, sin is also a ridiculous concept. As my atheist friend Rick put it: "How can a finite glob of ambulatory flesh "offend" a supposedly infinite Being? It's totally ludicrous."  Indeed!

Apart from that, it's nonsensical and arrogant to claim severe pain has any "redemptive value" to clean out sins. However, I do concede that if I believed in reincarnation - as many do - then one might regard personal suffering as a way to pay off karma from past lives, and hence ensure a better one in the new incarnation. There is a more rational basis to that, but not the concept of "expiation" or "redemptive value" which is asinine.

Director of Medical Ethics at New York University, Arthur Caplan,   noted on Harris' program:

"The Oregon law has been around for a decade. We haven't seen a slippery slope. We haven't seen the patients pushed off by doctors into the hereafter. I was an early critic like Ira Bailoc but I changed my views because it hasn't been abused."

If this ethicist can change his mind, many others can too. The point is that the Oregon law is not being abused and with the strict provisions in place it is not likely to be. Nor are thousands of people likely to move there to do it, and the total number thus far is less than 20 - which is less than 2 per year. What we must guard against here is moralist driven hysteria, as in the case of the use of medical marijuana.

Humans possess rational faculties but they become redundant if we are loathe to use them. Brittany is using her rational faculties - whether in fact she goes through with her plan, or she cancels out at anytime before.

Ultimately, the choice is hers!

Yes! Edward Snowden is a Hero for a Day!

Some of the protestors at Saturdays's anti-NSA Spying event  - hold a 'Thank you, Edward Snowden' sign.

Well, kudos to all those who showed up in D.C. to protest the NSA indiscriminate mass spying and telling these spooks to get a life and "stop watching us".  The program at the reflecting pool included ex-politicians, whistleblowers, professional activists, poets and a punk band, YACHT, who performed their song Party at the NSA.


There were also security heavyweights, such as Thomas Drake, the former NSA official who blew the whistle on government surveillance and waste following 9/11 and was charged under the Espionage Act, was on hand, talking to reporters about, among other things, recent revelations that the US government had tapped the phone of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and other world leaders.

"For what? Why would you violate her rights? Because, what, she might know something about terrorism?" he said. "What is that all about? They're an ally! They're partnered with us. I mean there are threats to the international order and stability. Why would you breach the trust of the chancellor of Germany?"

Meanwhile,  Melissa Harris Perry tried to spin it on her  Sunday morning MSNBC show that Edward Snowden "wasn't telling the truth" and there was no evidence of any such spying on Merkel. But she's absolutely wrong. On this morning's CBS Early Show, security specialist John Miller noted that an NSA person briefed him that Obama was never informed on Merkel intercepts dating all the way back to 2010 (in the 'President's Daily Briefs'), nor did NSA honcho Keith Alexander notify him.

If this is so, then it shows Obama was in the same predicament as JFK in confronting the national security state. In the latter case. FOIA -released documents disclose JFK complaining about "receiving inadequate information concerning developments in a number of countries." Gen. James H. Doolittle, a Kennedy ally on learning the CIA's withholding intelligence, remarked "the covert operations tail is wagging the intelligence dog".   Other examples include: the fired deputy CIA Director,  Gen. Charles Cabell delaying distribution of the Inspector  General's report on the Bay of Pigs invasion (which blamed the CIA) to Kennedy's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and the failure of US AID (a CIA extension outfit) to inform Kennedy of withdrawing aid to S. Vietnam - thereby setting the stage for the CIA-sponsored coup and assassination of the Diems in early November, 1963.

Back to the NSA protest:

When Drake addressed the crowd, he said any domestic surveillance legislation that might result from the Snowden leaks "must include whistleblower protection", because "without adequate protections, [government employees] are more likely to turn a blind eye" to abuses of power. He warned against the "acid turned up by the potent brew of secrecy and surveillance".

But the big star of the day, despite his physical absence, was Edward Snowden and as shown in the accompanying graphic,  "Thank you, Edward Snowden" was the most popular banner among the crowd. Jesselyn Radack, a former Justice Department ethics advisor,  now a director with the Government Accountability Project, read a statement from Snowden to the crowd:

"This isn't about red or blue party lines, and it definitely isn't about terrorism. It's about being able to live in a free and open society."

He also noted that:

 "elections are coming up, and we are watching you".

Members of Congress and government officials, he said, were supposed to be "public servants, not private investigators".  

Or, I might add, our masters! With upcoming elections, the serious anti-mass spying citizen needs to make a statement and toss all the bums out who have been pro-NSA, and anti-Snowden, irrespective of political party. That includes Dianne Feinstein, and Charles Schumer.


Thomas Drake's arguing for protection of whistleblowers goes without saying, given how our government and the Obama administration has done such an about face on whistleblowing, and transparency. We are now, I guess, supposed to just shrug and accept they can know everything about us, but we are not to know one damned thing about their doings - including 50 years ago with the JFK assassination files. Especially those connected with the operator and underling of David Atlee Phillips: George Joannides.

It's highly ironic that by its support of these intense and indiscriminate NSA vacuum data tactics and hyper-security measures, the Obama administration is actually assisting in its own entrapment by the national security state. The fact Obama didn't know about the Merkel intercepts is bad enough, but it makes one wonder how much else the NSA isn't telling him. The lesson of the Kennedy era is that a more open government shines a light on those that seek to undermine true domestic security- the "enemies within" if you will. JFK aimed for that with his open challenges to the CIA, but as one CIA spook put it: "Kennedy was the last president to really think he was the leader of the country".  But then it was Richard Bissel who later admitted "the CIA is a secret state of its own".

Both Bissel and the CIA nabob were undoubtedly aware that Kennedy formed the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board as a special organ to "bring the CIA under the control of the President".  In other words, JFK wanted to make sure the spooks knew who was in charge. Alas, the spooks fought back - unwilling to have anyone like a President ordering them around.

Back to the NSA Protests -

As for Melissa Harris Perry (on the issue of the NSA protests), she interjected many  more smoke screens and nonsense in her Sunday morning show to attempt to make the protestors appear as over reacting to the spooks. One of these was: How could a government that can't even set up a health care website be able to mount such a massive security spy operation?  Of course, she's a moron and as one of her guests pointed out to the dope: "Please don't confuse the NSA with a private Canadian software contractor". DUH!

Harris Perry also wanted to make hay out of the "irony" of people demanding the gov't stop watching them but on the other hand, putting up so much personal information on Facebook, or going to porn sites, or posting blogs.  But, of course, this isn't the same as a powerful government secret agency deliberately collecting metadata with no exercise of will by the citizen!

As guest Barton Gellman of the Century Foundation pointed out, in regard to the modern day metadata collection:

"What's different now is you don't have the potential of obscurity you used to have - you have automated systems that collect everything: who you talk to, exactly when, where you travel,  where you bank, what you buy and machines can correlate all of it.. You have no control over it. In ordinary life you can choose to control your words or choose to be quiet if you know someone is listening to you. You can't do anything to control the metadata and how they collect and correlate it automatically to assess threats."

And bear in mind, you may be one correlation away from being deemed a "terrorist", or criminal or "enemy of the state", say if you accidentally get a call from one guy who happens to support terror organizations via a charity. You may also be one correlation away if somehow the spooks determine you are into "domestic terrorism"  - say by openly opposing a fracking well.

Sadly, fake Libos like Melissa Harris Perry will never get it, or why at times it is strategically useful for citizens to band together across party lines to fight an even bigger monster : the over reach of the national security state. Thus, her also being "perplexed" at why liberals might band with libertarians like Justin Amash, i.e. to fight for changes to the NSA - Patriot Act oversight laws, and making Fisa courts accountable.

Those like Melissa are their own worst enemies. Sadly they aren't perspicacious enough to even know it.