Rep. Blumenauer Promoted Euthanasia with Obama, While Writing Provision into House Nazi Health Bill

Aug. 28 (LPAC)—Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), a blooming environmentalist nut case if there ever was one, proudly takes credit for introducing the end-of-life counselling provision into the House health care bill, which he co-authored along with the Hemlock Society, which is now reincarnated as "Compassion and Choices."

Both before and after his election of the U.S. Congress in 1996, Blumenauer has been a leading promotor of the right to die, environmentalism, "liveable communities," and bicycles.

His "Life Sustaining Treatment Preferences Act" was morphed into Sec. 1233 of the House bill, HR 3200.

Blumenauer was been an outspoken proponent of Oregon's "death with dignity" law since its passage in 1994, which allows physician-assisted suicide. He fought efforts in Congress to restrict assisted-suicide in Oregon, and he joined with others in 2005 in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, siding with Oregon's suicide.

In a posting on his personal website, Blumenauer promotes an October 1960 Harper's magazine special issue on health care and the right to die, and he says that Rahm Emanuel took the magazine to Obama, who later cited it in a speech.

Featured in the 1960 Harper's package is an article entitled "The Patient's Right to Die," on the subject of what the author shamelessly calls "mercy death," — this less than two decades after the Nazi doctors' trial at Nuremburg! The author, Joseph Fletcher, a professor of ethics and moral theology at the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge, Mass., decries the prevalent "irrational, phobic, and sentimental attitudes about voluntary death," and bemoans the fact that people still shy away from the use of the word "euthanasia." As for its open advocates, the Euthanasia Societies in America and England, Fletcher complains that they restrict both direct and indirect euthanasia "to voluntary situations where the patient has consented." But what about those who never stated their wishes? he asks.

Fletcher argues that it is "a very cloudy distiction" to find a moral difference between direct euthanasia ("mercy killing"), and indirect euthanasia (withdrawing of treatment), and he makes it clear that he favors direct euthanasia — mercy killing, in terms that might make a Nazi blush.

Other articles in that issue, attack the AMA and medical "guilds," complain about skyrocketing hospital costs and that in some cases, too many hospitals were being built under the Hill-Burton program, that too much money was being wastefully poured into medical research, and so on.

In postings on his Website, Blumenauer tells how he introduced Obama to Harper's promotion of euthanasia:

"When I had my opportunity to exchange some thoughts with the President, I used the magazine as an illustration of how high the stakes were and my commitment to work with him to make sure that 49 years from now people aren't going to be having the same debate and wonder why we came close but couldn't give Americans the health care they need and deserve.

"When the meeting was over, the President's chief of staff - Rahm Emanuel - took the magazine to deliver it to the President.

"And yesterday, President Obama used the magazine in his speech before the American Medical Association."

He quotes from Obama's June 15 speech:

"'The other day, my friend, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, handed me a magazine with a special issue titled, The Crisis in American Medicine. One article notes 'soaring charges.' Another warns about the 'volume of utilization of services.' And another asks if we can find a 'better way for paying for medical care.' It speaks to many of the challenges we face today. The thing is, this special issue was published by Harper's Magazine in October of 1960.'"

And yet, Obama has the gall to deny that "death panels" are part of his plan!