Martin Luther and Childhood Disability in 16th Century Germany: What did he write? What did he say?

Independent Living Institute: Martin Luther's views on disability have been widely misapprehended and caricatured on the basis of a few items in a dubious edition of shorthand notes of conversations. His written and spoken arguments across 30 years (1517-1546) concerned with childbirth and infancy, devils, superstitions, changelings, prodigies, folly, disablement, deafness, participation in Christian sacraments, and exegesis of Biblical texts on disabled people, give a more reliable and interesting guide to his views, in the context of Luther's personal involvement with sickness, disability and practical care. Historically, European social and religious developments contained a broader range of views on disability than is commonly supposed, with some challenges for 21st century thought and practice.

Beware 'suicide contagion'

NRLC: The latest figures for Oregon show that cases of assisted suicide have gone from 16 in 1998 to 71 in 2011, an increase of 450% (see chart). Switzerland has seen a 700% increase in assisted suicides over the same period. Swiss authorities have recorded a steady rise of assisted suicides in recent years, from 43 in 1998 to 297 in 2009. Earlier figures are not available, even though assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942.

The experience of both countries demonstrates that when assisted suicide is legalised there will inevitably be incremental extension. A major factor fuelling this increase is suicide contagion – the so-called Werther effect. This is particularly dangerous when assisted suicides are backed by celebrities as they are here and given high media profile as they are frequently by the BBC.

Norway’s Queen Maud in euthanasia speculations

Norway’s Queen Maud in euthanasia speculations / News / The Foreigner — Norwegian News in English.: Against a backdrop of Norway-Germany negotiations to unite against the Bolsheviks, come rumours Queen Maud was euthanized by her own physician.

Related: Was King George V of England also euthanized by the same doctor? BMJ

'via Blog this'

The Controversial Life of Dr. Jack Kevorkian

The Controversial Life of Dr. Jack Kevorkian - EverydayHealth.com: The medical pathologist-turned-assisted suicide advocate sparked a decades-long — and still ongoing — national debate about a terminally ill patient's right to die. Here's a rundown on his life.

More on the MSM's coverage of Kevorkian's death: Media Obituaries on Jack Kevorkian Use Revisionist History

Jack Kevorkian, aka 'Dr. Death,' dies at 83

Jack Kevorkian, aka 'Dr. Death,' dies at 83 - US news - Life - msnbc.com: This article, which begins by calling him "the audacious Michigan pathologist" is so much better than Barbara Walter's gushing eulogy. "Dr. Life"? Puh-leeze!

Related: Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network Comments on the Death of Jack Kevorkian

Kevorkian: A dark mirror on society

What is Kevorkian’s legacy? He assisted the suicides of 130 or so people and lethally injected at least two by his own admission (his first and his last); as a consequence of the latter, he served nearly ten years in prison for murder. But I think his more important place in contemporary history was as a dark mirror that reflected how powerful the avoidance of suffering has become as a driving force in society, and indeed, how that excuse seems to justify nearly any excess. . . .

Kevorkian was disturbingly prophetic. He called for the creation of euthanasia clinics where people could go who didn’t want to live anymore. They now exist in Switzerland and were recentlyoverwhelmingly supported by the voters of Zurich in an initiative intended to stop what is called “suicide tourism.” Belgian doctors have now explicitly tied euthanasia and organ harvesting. . . .

Time will tell whether Kevorkian will be remembered merely as a kook who captured the temporary zeitgeist of the times, or whether he was a harbinger of a society that, in the words of Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne, “believes in nothing [and] can offer no argument even against death." Wesley J. Smith

'Dr Death' is dead

Oakland County | Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian dies | The Detroit News: Jack Kevorkian, a former Oakland County pathologist who stirred public debate about physician-assisted suicide and admitted helping 130 people end their lives, has died. He had been hospitalized with kidney and respiratory problems for several weeks and was 83. Michigan's most famous felon pathologist was dubbed 'Dr. Death' in the heyday of his assisted-suicide crusade.

Editor: Consider the words of the Preacher --

It is better to go to a house of mourning
Than to go to a house of feasting,
Because that is the end of every man,
And the living takes it to heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter,
when a face is sad a heart may be happy.
The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning,
While the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure.
--Ecclesiastes 7:2-4

Kevorkian's mind dwelt on death, but did not "take it to heart." He did not fear God or remember his Creator (Eccl. 11:9, 12:13-14).

Readings on disability

I've been making revisions to the LIFT manual and came across this interesting series of articles:

• The eugenics movement Britain wants to forget
• When America believed in eugenics
• When the disabled were segregated

Nazi war crimes provide lessons in medical ethics

amednews: Nazi war crimes provide lessons in medical ethics :: Dec. 6, 2010 ... American Medical News: German physicians and scientists helped carry out the regime's policies. What can today's doctors learn from this tragic history?

In the 1930s and 1940s, hundreds of German medical professionals took part in a euthanasia program that targeted children younger than 3 years old with severe birth defects. Doctors and midwives were required to report such cases, and parents were told that advanced care could be given to children at 30 special pediatric wards around Germany. Instead, the children were murdered, usually with sedatives. Physicians drew up falsified death certificates, and parents were told their children died of natural causes such as pneumonia. An estimated 5,000 children fell victim to physicians and other medical professionals who went from healers to killers.

These actions were far from the exception in Nazi Germany. As evil as these actions appear in retrospect, they arose out of a highly sophisticated German medical culture. More than half of the Nobel Prizes that were awarded in science through the 1930s went to Germans. Where German medicine then went wrong is that physicians began to view improving the health of the "body politic" as a whole as their principal aim.

Repackaging death as life: The "Third Path" to imposed death

LifeTree: A major transformation of traditional medical ethics is taking place. What was once unthinkable has become acceptable, and no one really knows why. In the last half of the 20th century a multi-million dollar social engineering and marketing project financed by foundations and directed by bioethics think tanks has normalized the withdrawal of ordinary care.

Editor: A must-read on the history of the euthanasia movement.

Mentally handicapped Danes lobotomised until 1983

AFP: Mentally handicapped Danes lobotomised until 1983: historian: Many mentally handicapped Danes, including children, were lobotomised between 1947 and 1983, and many died from the operation, a historian behind a soon-to-be-published book on the topic told Danish media Thursday. 'The results of such operations generally were not good, and some 7.6 percent did not survive. What happened with people with mental handicaps is worse than what happened with psychiatric patients,' he said, referring to many operations performed on children as young as six years of age, even though their brains were not yet completely developed.

Related: Bulgarian mistreatment of disabled revealed

'Dr. Death' Admits Thomas Youk His Second Murder

Jack Kevorkian told Larry King on CNN’s Larry King Live on Friday that he directly killed Janet Adkins in June 1990, contradicting his previous story that she performed her own “mercy killing” using his lethal injection machine. Although Kevorkian was charged with murder in the death of Janet Adkins, a judge threw out the charges on the basis that Adkins caused her own death using Kevorkian’s machine. Kevorkian’s new admission, however, pulls the legs out from under that decision. LifeSiteNews

Assisted suicide: why now?

A hundred years ago when people did die in agony from such illnesses as a burst appendix, there was little talk of legalizing euthanasia. But now, when pain and other forms of suffering are readily alleviated and the hospice movement has created truly compassionate methods to care for the dying, suddenly we hear the battle cry “death with dignity” as “the ultimate civil liberty.”

In fighting assisted suicide since 1993, I have often pondered the “why now” question. I’ve found two answers: First, the perceived overriding purpose of society has shifted to the benefit of assisted suicide advocacy, and second, our public policies are driven and defined by a media increasingly addicted to slinging emotional narratives rather than reporting about rational discourse and engaging in principled analysis. Add in a popular culture enamored with social outlaws, and the potential exists for a perfect euthanasia storm.

The prevent-suffering-at-all-costs agenda is harnessed by assisted suicide advocates through publicizing heart-rending stories of seriously ill or disabled patients who want to die. Illustrating how potent this emotional narrative has become, even the ghoulish Jack Kevorkian is being remade into a big softy concerned solely with relieving suffering. Indeed, none other than Al Pacino sympathetically portrayed Kevorkian in the recent HBO movie, You Don’t Know Jack.

Ignored by the script writers and the media, the real Kevorkian was the mirror opposite of compassionate. In his 1993 book Prescription Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death, Kevorkian made his ultimate purpose chillingly clear, calling assisted suicide “a first step, an early distasteful professional obligation” toward obtaining a license to engage in human experimentation.

Writing further: “What I find most satisfying is the prospect of making possible the performance of invaluable experiments or other beneficial acts under conditions that this first unpleasant step can help establish — in a word, obitiatry — as defined earlier.” (“Obitiatry” is the word Kevorkian coined to describe experimenting on people as part of the practice of human euthanasia.) That the media depict Kevorkian as caring rather than self serving tells us how far awry we have been pushed by the collective desperation to avoid suffering by whatever means necessary. Wesley Smith

The First Christian Voices Against Euthanasia

According to its advocates, euthanasia is morally neutral or even a positive good within the framework of ethics, including Christian ethics. But is euthanasia really moral? Orthodoxy Today

Editor: The clear teaching of Scripture should be enough, but this review of the writings of some early Church leaders is also helpful.

Terri’s Ordeal and the Schindlers’ Example

Less than an hour after Terri’s heart stopped beating, in an extraordinary display of Christ-like humility, her brother Bobby faced the TV cameras and spoke to all who had clamored for her death.

Did he lash out at them, calling them to account for the suffering they had caused? No. Did he, out of mercy, state that he had forgiven them? No.

In one of the most breath-taking—and nearly inconceivable—displays of Christian submission, he asked for forgiveness. He asked forgiveness if he or his family had caused offense to anyone.

The Schindlers lived out the key trait for a pure heart. Forgiveness freed them from the stranglehold of bitterness and despair. It gave them strength to continue on to help others, which they have done through the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation. First Thoughts

March 31 Marks Fifth Annual 'Terri’s Day'

Friends of Terri Schiavo are calling on the pro-life community to commemorate her murder by dehydration and starvation on March 31, the anniversary of her death, by learning more about Terri's story and praying for other vulnerable individuals at risk of a similar fate. LifeSiteNews

Here's one thing you can do to mark the day: Fill out, and make others aware of, National Right to Life's Will to Live. See also BFL's Protective Medical Decisions Declaration.

Webcast: Looking Forward on the 5th Anniversary of Terri's Death

Days before the 5th anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death, Family Research Council will host a panel at its headquarters in Washington, DC, to discuss the circumstances and policy implications of the court ordered decision to slowly starve her to death. The event may be viewed via webcast on March 31, the anniversary of her death. Register at www.frc.org.

Remembering Terri on the Fifth Anniversary of Her Death

March 18, 2005, was Day 1 of Judge George W. Greer's court ordered slow death by starvation and dehydration of Terri Schindler Schiavo. Please visit www.terrisfight.org the next two weeks where they'll post stories of the events that occurred on each of the 13 horrific days that Terri went without food or water.

Why the assisted-suicide movement is winning

The assisted-suicide movement has come a long way in just a couple of decades. . . . When members of the social and political elite associate themselves with assisted-suicide groups as openly as they would with charities like the United Way, we have reached a new cultural moment. National Review; see also The Creeping Culture of Euthanasia

The Dutch Way of Death: Socialized medicine helped turn doctors into killers

On a Monday morning that he will never forget, Dr. Niko Wolswinkel's patient, a 77-year old woman dying from cancer, asked him to kill her. As a purely legal matter, he knew he could do it, but he searched his conscience. He couldn't bring himself to kill his patient; doctors are supposed to be healers, not killers. And, as a Christian, he believed it was wrong to take into his hands the power of God. A few days later, his patient died naturally. Wall Street Journal past featured article