Obama-Rockefeller Euthanasia Policy Denounced by LaRouchePAC Representatives

June 26, 2009 (LPAC)—The Alliance for Health Reform, long chaired by Senator John D. ("Jay") Rockefeller IV, and the pro-euthanasia Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, sponsored a Washington DC press conference. Speakers were death cultists Daniel Callahan and Uwe Reinhardt promoting the Obama policy, and two other men vaguely opposing it.

EIR/LaRouchePAC reporter Anton Chaitkin asked the first question:

"I'd like the panel's reaction to the unique family relationship of your chairman, Senator Rockefeller, to his father's employee, your speaker Daniel Callahan.

"Jay's grandfather [JDR, Jr.] paid for the German eugenics program that created Hitler's euthanasia.

"Jay's father [JDR III] set up the Population Council to fight alleged non-white overpopulation; merged the American Eugenics Society into it; and hired Daniel Callahan to create the U.S. euthanasia group, Hastings Center.

"Senator Rockefeller and President Obama now propose a Federal board to cut and ration health care, and the first to die would certainly be the poor and non-white.

"How would you defend yourselves before a new Nuremberg Tribunal?"

The moderator representing Rockefeller erupted with complaints at the question. But Daniel Callahan, the most provocative kill-patients advocate on the current scene, spoke up in response:

"I am on record for many years in opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide."

Chaitkin said that his question applied particularly to "Callahan and to the German fellow" — i.e., Reinhardt. (Reinhardt wrote in the New York Times Economix Blog, March 13, 2009 that "opponents of cost-effectiveness analysis include individuals who sincerely believe that health and life are 'priceless'... It is an utterly romantic notion and, if I may say so, also an utterly silly one.... In my next post, I shall explore whether any health system can forever escape the troublesome question, 'At what price human life?'")

Reacting nervously to the noting of his pronounced German accent, Reinhardt attempted sarcasm: "Of course, I'm German, and we Germans are well known for promoting euthanasia. Ha ha!"

A short while later, when Callahan and Reinhardt were droning on about how cost-effectiveness is really patient advocacy, Chaitkin asked them, "But you both aggressively promote the withdrawal of care, to kill sick people. That is the underlying question in the current debate. Do you propose to kill those people, or not?"

By this time Rockefeller's moderator had called security guards and Chaitkin was escorted out of the event. The only two other questions up to this point were from the LaRouchePAC representative Michelle Lerner, who disputed Chaitkin's specific claim, and instead announced to the panel, "it is not the poor and non-white, but the elderly that will be the first to die..." but she was silenced by the moderator. Otherwise, the 30 or so reporters sat silently.

After Chaitkin was ejected, Michelle raised her hand, and was called on. She was instructed that her question had to be short and "relevant to what we're talking about." The sponsors had given out essays to all the attendees, which included an essay by Callahan, arguing that the only important thing left to do is reduce benefits; and doing that, means denying care to the elderly, regardless of their desires. It also stated that "80 years" is where you draw the line on who should live.

Michelle said, "You handed out this essay, where you state that health care should not be given to the elderly, whether they want it or need it, and 80 years is where we should draw the line. Just as a side note, Benjamin Franklin was well into his 80s when he played a crucial role in writing the Constitution. So, if we had cut him off, we might not be sitting here today. Did you get these ideas when you were a director of the Eugenics Society? Or from the co-founder of the Hastings Institute, and the co-chair of the Eugenics Society, Theodore Dobzhansky?"

Callahan tried to deny what he had said in the distributed paper: "I wasn't really saying 80 ... the Hastings Center wasn't doing work on Eugenics... he wasn't the co-founder; he only spoke there once..." [Dobzhansky, chairman of the Eugenics Society, was a founding director of the Hastings Center.]

Michelle said, "In the speech you made two years ago, you said you don't understand why people over 80 would want to continue their poor-quality lives, rather than die." Callahan replied, "I'm almost 80, and I know a lot of people over 80 who would rather be dead."

Michelle said: "How can you put a price tag on life?"

Then Uwe Reinhart, part of Medpac, interrupted: "I can answer that! You already put a price tag on life when you don't put in street lights (and people are killed as a result). Health is the only area where we don't do it, and we have to do it in health, too."

"No," said Michelle, "We have to stop putting a price on life anywhere."

"You must leave," the ghouls said. Michelle said, "Don't send the FBI to my house, like you did to my friend's...."

After Michelle left, Reinhardt couldn't stop talking. He referred to the horrific DC metro accident, and declared, "The lack of maintenance there put a price on life..." At that point, even an AEI follower told Reinhardt, "You shouldn't have said that."