Is Resistance Futile: Another Slippery Slope?
In 1986 in the Presbyterian Journal (February 12), Dr. Hilton Terrell and I dared to suggest that limited care in seriously ill and terminal patients might be both an application of limited efficacy, the Golden Rule, and an economic issue. Judging by the opinions expressed in a recent World Magazine article (“Is resistance futile?,” July 8/15, 2000), there has been no progress on Christians’ understanding of these same issues, 14 years later. The World article begins with a critical review of a survey of AIDS patients with three months to live, 61 percent of whom stated that it would be acceptable for physicians to withhold treatment of pneumonia because of their terminal condition. The author, Lynn Vincent, then cites Wesley J. Smith of the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force, that this study “along with myriad journal articles, bioethics debates and academic symposia — was designed to build statistical scaffolding for something called ‘futile-care theory'” (also called “medical
