The same ethics these doctors have signed that agreed to forced DNR and forced paramedics DNR on elderly patients at the street level.
Nursing homes such as the one we are talking about were ordered by the state and state health department to take recovered COVID19 patients with CDC guide lines, medical doctors that signed the ethics made that decision to send patients to the nursing homes and the politicians followed that decision blindly. It's doctors and politicians that's killing people and destroying a Country while we the people idly stand by and do nothing. The people that want to do something about it are chastise and ridiculed in the press by politicians and the medical profession you know, the same g'damn people that are killing people and destroying a Country, the same people that took an oath.
I don't believe in forced DNRs, but there is a common-sense grey area.
I believe in the sanctity of life (which is why I work in the medical field).
There does come a point where a person who is in their 90s, has kidney, liver, and heart failure, paralysis from multiple strokes, and an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer (yes, all in the same patient at the same time) should be allowed to die.
I am not talking about euthanasia, as I make a distinction between allowing someone to die and actively killing someone with--for example--a lethal injection of paralytic drugs and sedatives.
People always bring out the slippery slope when it comes to these kinds of discussions (allowing an elderly sick person to die is not OK, because--eventually--it will lead to killing healthy [but unwanted] children), but the slippery slope is--on most occasions--a subtle, logical fallacy.
As an example of my point, consider how different cultures raise their children, and what does--and does not--constitute unhealthy touching.
We certainly don't want our children to be molested by a sick pedophile, and I assume that any reasonable person can agree with this.
The problem happens when overly strict familes discourage and forbid any touching at all . . . and teach a child that all touching is bad. The idea behind this parenting style is an irrational fear of the child getting molested (and--sometimes--out of obsessive religious beliefs about sin and carnality), so if we teach the kid that all touch is bad, then we're helping the child by keeping them from being molested. We don't want to teach a kid that hugging is OK, because hugging can lead a kid into being vulnerable to a pedophile.*
The only problem with this is that families who raise kids in this manner will have children who are just as hurt and screwed up as if they were molested . . . but just in a different way.
Atachment Disorder is a serious neurological disorder that afflicts people who grew up without any physical contact when they were kids.
It was also discovered--during WWII, when lots of babies ended up in orphanages--that if babies aren't cuddled and held on a regular basis, then they die . . . even if all of their other needs (like food, hygiene, hydration, warmth, and so on) are met.
I seem to have digressed away from the slippery slope fallacy, but I haven't.
The point that I'm trying to make in this example is that there is a healthy middle ground--a grey area--between physically isolating a child and allowing them to get molested.
The slippery slope disregards a healthy middle ground by describing a situation as an "either-or" choice . . . when real life doesn't work this way.
This is how I view DNRs and 'end of life' situations.
It always comes down to whatever is in the patients' best interests. There is a vast difference between witholding nutrition, hydration, and/or CPR from a person in a vegetative state . . . and killing children because they are undesirable and/or inconvienient.
Every patient (and health situation) should be judged on an individual basis, because every person is different. What is healthy for one patient may be horrible and dangerous for someone else.
To have a set of universal rules that automatically apply to everyone regardless of circumstances becomes what I like to call "cookie-cutter" medicine (We see cookie-cutter medicine in the military, and with some HMOs that turn medicine into an assembly line in order to maximize profits).
It is wrong to take a unique person with unique needs and force them into a cubby-hole (because of "the rules") that may not be the best fit for them.
A certain amount of moral flexibility does not imply a disregard for the sanctity of life.
---------------------------
* This reminds me of a crass, bigoted, off-color joke about Southern Baptists who don't have sex standing up because it might lead to dancing.
