Missing The Diagnosis

The Raleigh News & Observer has an agenda, and it seems at least part of my position on physicians "attending" condemned inmates at executions fits the bill.

It's fairly clear from this editorial entitled "Right Diagnosis" that the N&O's editorial staff sees the NC Medical Board's decision to appeal a recent nonsensical ruling by Wake County Superior Court judge, Donald Stephens (a ruling that essentially says a badly-conceived law trumps medical ethics . . . a ruling I would actually expect in this state) as step number one towards doing away with executions all together:

What state officials seem to fear is that the Medical Board's stance will prompt a larger debate over the death penalty, period. And that is something from which many politicians in a conservative state run and run hard. Certainly in North Carolina, with DNA testing having exonerated some people who were found guilty and with some unfortunate episodes of prosecutorial misconduct in the recent past, further debate over the one penalty that cannot in any way be corrected would be appropriate.

Ergo (as I noted in my previous post), the N&O's selective use of quotes from my blog in this article. I was wondering why, after several years of ignoring me (the N&O has only been marginally nicer about blowing me off than the N&R), I was suddenly being quoted in a front & center news story.

I say again, I am NOT a "liberal tree hugger" on this issue. It is my belief that execution is a necessary evil . . . the ultimate penalty that society should hold in reserve for the worst of the worst.

Jesus Christ, who was (1) big on personal responsibility and (2) Himself An Innocent Man executed by the state, said, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars . . . " . It's radical societal wisdom that the tree-huggers might take to heart. Caesar has rules. If you break them, God will forgive you (provided you repent). But the state is another story. Take a life and you just might render your own.

Where God is concerned, doctors do "that Oath thing" (i.e. swearing/affirming before God) . . . and are the only people I know of who are licensed by the state to "first do no harm". Pushing the dead juice (or placing/adjusting the IV via which it is pushed) is, by definition, harmful. Ergo, doctors do not belong in the death chamber.

And North Carolina's governing board for physicians should be able to make that call . . . irrespective of what the good-ole-boy politicians and lawyers running this state want.

Of course, the Medical Board is actually run by lawyers.

Once again, I sincerely doubt that the Founders . . . who, as one comedian said, killed because taxes were levied against their favorite breakfast beverage . . . had any of this "death can't hurt at all" stuff in mind when they talked about "cruel and unusual" punishment. They spent quite a bit of time on the notion of due process for that reason.

The punishment should fit some crimes. In my book, that doesn't include free room and board for the rest of a murder's life.

Of course we have plenty of examples of due process failing the individual miserably. But I think that's a reason to do better at ensuring due process . . . not doing away with capital punishment when that's what the crime demands. We have the technology these days to be certain (the idiots on OJ's jury notwithstanding) in capital cases. It's fairly simple: If we can't be certain in a capital case, the penalty should not be applied.

Of course, that requires principled prosecutors. Don't get me started.

From the N&O editorial: Physicians take a clear oath to do no harm. They vow to use their powers, their skills, their educations, to save lives. The state of North Carolina cannot draw enough fine lines, or mince enough words, or spin enough arguments, to make what it wants doctors to do fit in with the doctors' solemn professional promises. If state law tries to do that, then the law is wrong.

Yes indeed. Let's take that argument on medical ethics an itsy-bitsy step farther. There are laws on the books now that would/should help me . . . after doing this . . . in direct defiance of the medically & ethically clueless edicts of two power-mongering, arrogant, greedy, lying hospital administrators.

No, that's not exactly what I think about them. What I really think isn't printable.

If the Oath is so important . . . if medical ethics matters so much to the News & Observer . . . why aren't they asking these questions: (1) Where is the law for a physician who saved a newborn infant's life in the middle of the night when those who issued the amoral/self-serving edicts were asleep in their beds? (2) Where is the law for a physician whose education was paid for by the state . . . with the express mission of that payment being to bring her home and keep her home? (3) Where is the law for a physician who was swindled of fair restitution after jumping through all of the hoops in our oh-so-noble civil court system . . . a physician defrauded by blatant, in-you-face contemptuous perjury on the part of two "non-profit" hospital executives . . . executives of a "public charity" who supposedly are held to a higher standard ?

As I told Titan Barksdale in a post-publication back & forth, The Medical Board has ignored my plight - even as I fell on my sword to fulfill my duty to a patient. They have no &^%$# clue what principle is.

This state needs to defend the duties it requires. It needs to protect medical whistle-blowers. And it needs to hold liars & cheats accountable NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE - OR WHO THEY KNOW.

I don't want to hear about "ethics" until it does.