WSJ: The VA's Death Book for Veterans

****UPDATE: Attached below is a PDF copy of "Your Life, Your Choices"

This came over the transom from twitter... when I saw the title, my initial reaction was "huh?" Then I read the article. And my reaction went from question to anger in a nanosecond... and as a veteran... something about chewing plutonium and spitting nuclear weapons!

To save you the reader the click time to go to the article, here is the first few paragraphs:

"If President Obama wants to better understand why America's discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.

Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."If President Obama wants to better understand why America's discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.

If you're not sure what this all means... here is the part where I went through the overhead...

"Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.

"Your Life, Your Choices" presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political "push poll." For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be "not worth living." "

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to "shake the blues." There is a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."

"When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?"

And this is ethics? In my view this is a tacit violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

Ethics, as defined by Webster is "a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values ; a guiding philosophy ; a consciousness of moral importance

Dr. Robert Pearlman calls himself an ethicist? These are the morals of evil! Any doctor, including that student of Josef Mengele, Ezekiel Emanual... brother of Rahm Emanual... who advocates this sort of action is violating their oath to "do no harm". As a moral tennant, the sanctity of life must be preserved at all costs, the first hospitals were started by the Catholic church... in keeping with that tradition, no one should ever suggest that a person take his or her own life... any doctors who suggest otherwise are no better than the "Doctors" at either Auschwitz, Dachau, French Guiana, etc...

From a moral standpoint, these Monsters suggest, through coercion and with no consideration of their religious beliefs, that the victim should relinquish their immortal soul and commit suicide! Lets call it what it is... this is MURDER! If they facilitate a process to deceive a veteran into taking his/her own life, that by any "ethical" standard, would be murder. Somehow when the discussion of "ethics" arises, the actual definition never is taken into account. Any moral decision, is NOT up to the caregiver, it is up to the patient and his/her family. As the article questions "who needs a death panel?" when you have government doctors finding sinister ways to get their victim to do their dirty work.

...and this is how the Federal Government pays back those that put it on the line to preserve this nation...

I have a question for these doctors... have you ever heard the term "accessory"?

To get the whole story about this travesty: The Death Book for Veterans - Ex-soldiers don't need to be told they're a burden to society.