To the Editor:

Jack Kevorkian used to call what he does "medicide" until it was pointed out that the term literally means "the killing of medicine." Many feared that killing the medical profession was exactly what he would accomplish if he succeeded in turning physicians into agents of death who were authorized to put the sick out of our emotional and financial misery. But it appears to already be too late.

Although partial-birth abortion has been condemned by the medical profession as never justified, the profession has taken no action against its practitioners. Consider what kind of mind it takes to hold a perfectly formed human child squirming in one's hands and then puncture its skull and suck its brains out. Do such as these really qualify to be called medical doctors? Then why are they still members of the profession in good standing and allowed to continue this horrific practice?

The byword of the medical profession used to be "above all do no harm," and the Hippocratic Oath used to say "I will give no deadly medicine." It also included an explicit prohibition against committing abortion. (Perhaps this has something to do with why it has quietly disappeared from many medical schools.) What has become of the medical profession when it welcomes into its ranks those unethical practitioners who have prostituted their skills to destroy human life, accepts abortion when there is no medical indication, and intrudes itself into families by condoning surgery on minors without parental permission or knowledge? Yet many, duped by the wedge issues of pain and personal autonomy, want to trust this thoroughly corrupted brotherhood with end of life decisions for the weakest and most vulnerable among us.

We are not far from the experience of the Netherlands where euthanasia is legal. The Dutch now fear entering their own hospitals where many lives are involuntarily ended in spite of so-called safeguards.

Sincerely,
Alfred Lemmo