Fire. Them. All.: The Only Civilized Response

McLean's Online reports that a new poll shows that 70% of Quebec specialists favor legalized euthanasia. (On the plus side, 20% say they would refuse to do it if it were illegal.)

There has been much hand-wringing over this news as it it were something about which nobody could do anything. After all, they are doctors! Well, I have a solution: Fire. Them. All.

That's right: the whole 70% should have their licences revoked and shown the door. Let them drive taxi or sell cars and, in their spare time, let them meditate on their sins. Maybe at some point in the future, some will change their views and apply for re-instatement. Maybe they will be judged to be sufficiently reformed as to be acceptable. Of course, there are logistical considerations. It would have to be done in stages over a period of years as new doctors were trained and recruited to replace them. And, it could very well be that as the first few firings occurred, the majority of the rest just might have second thoughts and re-discover their enthusiasm for the Hippocratic Oath. Well and good. Repentence is always better than judgment, from a Christian viewpoint. But make no mistake, this is the sort of thing that needs to be discussed in terms of repentence.

This kind of immoralism stikes at the heart of the doctor-patient relationship and undermines the very practice of medicine itself. Society should not tolerate this cancer. For doctors to be willing to become agents of the state and kill their patients makes them not doctors any longer, but executioners and lackeys of the totalitarian thugs. There is no room for nuance or hair-splitting on this fundamental point of principle. What is wrong with our society is that there has been no public expression of moral outrage - no demonstrations in front of doctor's offices, no complaints to the medical asssociations, no calling for heads on a platter. This is not a debate over the color of the carpeting; this is literally a matter of life and death, good and evil, civilization versus barbarism.

The problem with us is that we think every issue has two sides. While that is true of the vast majority of issues, only a decadent society could apply that to killing the weak, the helpless and the vulnerable. There is only one position compatible with being a doctor in a civilized society and that has been embedded in the Hippocratic Oath and reinforced by Judeo-Christian morality for 2500 years. If doctors want to go to war with the moral foundations of our society, then society should respond by carrying defensive war to them and treating them as the enemy. There is no room for barbarians in the operating rooms of our nation. Fire. Them. All. Now.