The Co-Director of Discovery Institute's Center on Human Rights and Bioethics, Wesley J. Smith, has the lead letter on "palliative sedation" at the New York Times this morning. It's well worth reading and pondering, as are the other letters that respond to a long article the Times ran over the holidays. The article's author isAnemona Hartocollis.
Given a chance to confuse and manipulate readers (as The Times does on some other cultural topics), Hartocollis' special report was remarkably sensitive and constructive.
There are two great dangers on the issue of end of life treatment: 1) that advocates of euthanasia will use confusion about pain management as an excuse to insinuate active killing of a patient, sometimes a patient who is only hurting or depressed; and 2) that well-meaning and ethical people will forego the medical attention that is totally ethical and really can alleviate suffering as the end comes. This last concern is the one that The Times article most successfully addresses.
In practice, confusion among many in the public and in medicine contributes, unfortunately, to building support for active euthanasia. In that regard, the Times article was a help for all who traditionally care about "what it means to be human."
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