The US Constitution isn’t the only centuries-old pillar of tradition that has become outmoded in the Age of Moonbattery Triumphant. Another is the Hippocratic Oath. Swearing to do no harm doesn’t make much sense in a society that regards killing inconvenient children as protecting women’s health. Taxpayer-subsidized NPR swings an axe into the concept that medicine isn’t supposed to hurt people:

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NPR’s Richard Knox played up a Pennsylvania judge’s dismissal of a homicide case involving admitted euthanasia as “a sign that attitudes about end-of-life decisions are changing, whatever most statutes say,” in a Wednesday item for the public radio network’s health news blog. Knox euphemistically described the controversial practice, as he asserted that “the [judge's] decision is the latest in a series of recent developments signaling a reluctance of courts and state legislatures to criminalize medical care that may hasten death.”

The correspondent also slanted towards pro-euthanasia groups by including two quotes from a representative of an “advocacy group,” while providing none from pro-life opponents.

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To get an idea where NPR et al. will be driving the herd next, look to progressive Belgium:

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Belgium, one of the very few countries where euthanasia is legal, is expected to take the unprecedented step this week of abolishing age restrictions on who can ask to be put to death — extending the right to children for the first time.

The legislation appears to have wide support in the largely liberal country. But it has also aroused intense opposition from foes — including a list of pediatricians — and everyday people who have staged noisy street protests, fearing that vulnerable children will be talked into making a final, irreversible choice.

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Life under liberals means you will have no right to live if it requires defending yourself with a firearm, but you will have a right to die, if it helps the government-run healthcare system save money.

What makes the progressive enthusiasm for euthanasia particularly chilling is that all things liberal are built on a single foundation: government coercion. Combine euthanasia with coercion and you have the statist utopia that prevailed in Germany during the 1930s.

Read more:http://moonbattery.com/?p=42360

Historical footnote: The original Hippocratic Oath which set forth the highest ethical standards in Western medicine forbade aiding in an abortion. and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion

With Roe v Wade that phrase has been eliminated and the killing of babies by doctors allowed.

Hippocratic Oath: Modern Version

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

"Above all, I must not play at God." You bet.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippoc...oath-today.html