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A Winnipeg case currently winding its way to its grim conclusion pits the children of Samuel Golubchuk against doctors at the Salvation Army Grace General Hospital. According to the pleadings, Golubchuk's doctors informed his children that their 84-year-old father is "in the process of dying" and that they intended to hasten the process by removing his ventilation, and if that proved insufficient to kill him quickly, to also remove his feeding tube. In the event that the patient showed discomfort during these procedures, the chief of the hospital's ICU unit stated in his affidavit that he would administer morphine. Golubchuk is an Orthodox Jew, as are his children. The latter have adamantly opposed his removal from the ventilator and feeding tube, on the grounds that Jewish law expressly forbids any action designed to shorten life, and that if their father could express his wishes, he would oppose the doctors acting to deliberately terminate his life.
In response, the director of the ICU informed Golubchuk's children that neither their father's wishes nor their own are relevant, and he would do whatever he decided was appropriate. Bill Olson, counsel for the ICU director, told the Canadian Broadcasting Company that physicians have the sole right to make decisions about treatment -- even if it goes against a patient's religious beliefs -- and that "there is no right to a continuation of treatment." That position was supported by Dr. Jeff Blackner, executive director of the office of ethics of the Canadian Medical Association. He told Reuters: "[W]e want to make sure that clinical decisions are left to physicians and not judges." Doctors' decisions are made only with the "best interest of the individual patient at heart," he said, though he did not explain how that could be squared with the undisputed claim that this patient would oppose the doctors' decision. Meanwhile, an Angus Reid poll of Canadians showed that 68% supported leaving the final decision with the family. The claim of absolute physician discretion to withdraw life-support advanced by the Canadian doctors would spell the end of any patient autonomy over end-of-life decisions. So-called living wills, which are recognized in many American states, and which allow a person to specify in advance who should make such decisions in the event of their incapacity, would be rendered nugatory. Even those who would not wish to be maintained in a state of unconsciousness, and who do not share the religious beliefs of the Golubchuk family should fear the claim of moral omniscience made by Canadian doctors -- and not just because Josef Mengele was a doctor. As Professor Richard Weikart chillingly details in From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, Mengele's experiments on "inferior" Jewish children for the benefit of the Master Race have to be viewed in the context of German Social Darwinism in the seven decades leading up to the Nazi takeover. In Weikart's estimate, a majority of German physicians and scientists subscribed to the naturalistic Darwinian world view and ideas that constituted a sustained assault on the traditional Judeo-Christian concept of the sanctity of life. Among those ideas are the claim that there is no fundamental distinction between humans and animals; human beings do not possess a soul that endows them with any rights or superiority to any other species; within the species homo sapiens, there are "inferior" and "superior" individuals, and inferior and superior races; and it is the iron will of nature that the species should evolve through the survival of the superior members and the death of the inferior.
Darwin's cousin Francis Galton founded the modern eugenics movement on the basis of Darwinian arguments, and nowhere did eugenics catch on with greater enthusiasm than in Germany (though many prominent intellectuals in the United States, England and France were also enthusiastic supporters.) In Germany, many took the next step - from eugenics to involuntary euthanasia for the mentally ill and other defectives. Ernest Haeckel, one of the most influential 19th-century German biologists, whose faked drawings of developing human embryos allegedly recapitulating the evolutionary path still feature prominently in college biology texts, argued for the killing of the mentally ill, lepers, those with incurable cancer, and cretins. As a safeguard, he too recommended a committee of physicians to pass judgment. Alfred Hoche, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Freiburg, justified shortening an inferior life if the insights gained would save better lives. "By giving up the conception of the divine image of humans under the influence of Darwinian thinkers," writes Hans-Walter Schmuhl, mainstream German thinkers came to view human life as "a piece of property" to be weighed against other pieces of property. Just as Nazism gave anti-Semitism a bad name, so too did it discredit Social Darwinism. But just as anti-Semitism has reappeared, so has the assault on the concept of the sanctity of life. That assault is not limited to Princeton ethicist Peter Singer's defense of infanticide, euthanasia and bestiality on explicitly Darwinian grounds. In place of the sanctity of life, we now speak of the "quality of life" -- a term that explicitly assumes that some lives are worth more than others. There is even talk of the "duty to die" and clear the way for higher-quality lives, which is why the American Association of People with Disabilities has been actively involved in so many cases dealing with the doctors' right to terminate medical care. The rage for medical rationing in Canada, of which the Golubchuk case is but one example, derives from a desire not to waste resources on low-quality lives. It would be a bitter irony if Percy Shulman, a Jewish judge in Winnipeg, were to grant Dr. Bojan Paunovic the right to end Samuel Golubchuk's life on the grounds that it lacks the requisite quality. This article originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post.
Published: Sunday, January 06, 2008
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we have one thins in common
I am a catholic from Poland and I am really shocked by the case of Mr Samuel Golubchik. This kind of situation does not happen for the first time: some time ago there was a similar case in America and the woman finally died. Is this going to be a common rule in our "civilized" world? I hope that this time the whole world will not be watching through television screens how a poor man is being killed.
Whatever differences in our religions are, the sanctity of life is something which unites us. Therefore we should try to act together (at least in this matter) in order to resist these kind of evil practices.
(34) Anonymous, 20/1/2008
poor people are treated differently than rich people by hospitals.
From 1958-66 i served as a synagogue rabbi in Winnipeg and as assistant principal for Torah studies at the Wolinsky Collegeate (the only day school high school in the city.)
Sam Golubchik and his wife and children were either students at the collegeate or participants in adult education classes. Mr Golubchik was so poor that he could not afford to buy his wife a needed clothing.
We had a clubs period and I led the psychology club. One time we tried out the remote association test by Mednick. Mednick used the test to predict clinical psych excellence. When the group was finished taking the test we shared answers. The Golubchik girl had the most correct responses but the other members of the club would not accept her (correct) solutions. It seems that they regarded her as a failure even when she was obviously correct. I wonder what the hospital would have decided to do if Mr. Golubchik had been wealthy enough to afford excellent treatment.
(33) Sammy, 15/1/2008
This is murder, plain and simple
Let's be blunt: deliberately ending someone's life, when the person does not wish his life to be ended, and in the face of vehement opposition from his children, is MURDER.
For anyone who calls himself a doctor to abrogate the Hippocratic oath, to essentially play God and to try to end someone's life, under the facade of "futile care" theory or any other such nonsense, when the person is clearly awake and communicative and clearly wants to live, is evil!
This is a sin in any major religion, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.
This is evil.
As for those who misunderstand and misquote, such as claiming falsely that that any authentic Jewish source recommends turning a ventilator off or taking any other positive action to shorten the life of a person, all I can say is that ignorance is not bliss.
For millennia, scholars of Jewish law have unanimously ruled that anyone who willfully shortens the life of even someone about to die (a "gossess") is guilty of murder.
What these evil people wish to do is far worse, of course, since they wish to be given the sole right to decide whether tens of thousands, nay millions, of patients should live or be killed--based on no clearcut criteria but rather the subjective estimation of the "doctor", and without any ability of appeal or of any checks and balances.
A criminal on death row would have many more rights than our innocent loved ones, under such a horrific policy.
The fact that so many are misled by such utterly reprehensible ideas is a symptom of the appalling lack of knowledge of the basics of Judaism (or any major religion, for that matter)--in this case, this represents profound ignorance of one of the Ten Commandments, and one of the 7 Noahide commandments, binding on all human beings.
I urge all readers to learn this subject with a qualified rabbi.
Please do not let those who wish to kill confuse or disarm us.
Le'ts unite against evil, even if it is dressed in the white coats of physicians or the business suits of corporate attorneys, or in the facade of a hospital named Grace Hospital.
(32) E. M. Lefrak, 12/1/2008
life is precious and of immense value
I have learned that every moment of life is precious. I'm not sure of my sources, but I have learned that every moment of life on this earth can bring a person to Olam Haba or to higher levels within Olam Haba. In other words, to get REAL life, one should have life on this earth, and the suffering one may endure enables the person to achieve a higher level in the next world. Merciful doctors? Ha!