Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America Review

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(More customer reviews)In spite of the title, this book isn't about what most people would think it's about. It is not about abortion.
Rather, it is about what author Wesley J. Smith terms "futile care theory" - modern medicine's inaction due to the direction of bioethics and cost-benefit ratios.
Through compelling and often disturbing anecdotes Smith examines how "bioethicists" threaten patient welfare through redefinition, organ harvesting, and support for euthanasia.
Futile Care Theory, he explains, allows physicians to base care decisions upon the patients' "quality of life", thereby often deciding that no care is the best care.
I found Chapter 6 especially interesting, as Smith discusses how our culture protects animals at the expense of people. A similar action was taken by the National Socialist government in Germany just prior to the Nazi's creation of their "Final Solution" for the extermination of the disabled, gypsies, Jews, etc.
Smith includes an appendix which shows the payback in terms of medical discoveries and cures which have resulted from animal research.
In the end Smith advocates a "human rights" bioethics - one that will again value human life.
His work is eye-opening and demonstrates just how much we have embraced what Pope John Paul II has termed a "Culture of Death." I recommend this book quite highly.

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