Word: outlawing
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Jack Kevorkian must be rolling over in his jail cell. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would outlaw the use of federally controlled drugs in physician-assisted suicide. The bill, sponsored by Henry Hyde, is a pointed rebuke to Oregon voters, who passed the Death With Dignity Act in 1997, permitting doctors to prescribe (but not administer) lethal levels of painkillers to terminally ill, mentally competent patients who are within six months of dying. Under a law modeled on Hyde's bill, doctors convicted of aiding in a suicide could spend at least 20 years...
With an answer like that, how big a jerk can he be? But what about the vision thing? Every candidate needs one. He's for tax cuts, against affirmative action and pro-choice; he fears that if we outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns and thinks campaign finance is a complicated issue but simple enough for him. He can afford to think that. "I'm prepared to spend what it takes, $20 million to $40 million," he declares, "and then I won't be beholden to anyone." Does he really have the cash, having gone neck deep into debt...
...Congress is hurrying to ruin the people's work. The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill last week that would essentially outlaw assisted suicides. The so-called Pain Relief Promotion Act sounds hilariously uncontroversial, but in fact it would send doctors to jail for life for prescribing controlled substances with the intent of hastening death. The bill now goes to the entire House. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden has promised a filibuster in the Senate; the President has taken no stand...
What does it take to become an outlaw in China? Promote democracy, organize an illicit labor union--or spend an early-morning hour in a park moving your hands around the shape of an imaginary wheel...
MASTECTOMIES To judge from the rush to outlaw "drive-by" mastectomies, you'd think we faced a crisis. But outpatient mastectomies (as they're known off the Senate floor) aren't really a serious national problem. Roughly 15% of mastectomies are done on an outpatient basis today, up from 2% in 1991. Naturally there are some abuses. But as with everything from cataracts to cartilage, technical leaps often make outpatient surgery the safer, cheaper option. Johns Hopkins University, for example, one of the nation's top breast-surgery centers, does mostly outpatient work and reports fewer infections and happier patients...