Shame.
It’s one of the things we’re trying to get at, with our koans and our agitprop: to shame the ruling powers when we have no power of our own. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Ok.) has something he really ought to feel ashamed of. He is, after all, a doctor, and in July of 1998, he said this:
[In] an interview after [Coburn]’s panel appearance, he conceded the issue of caring for a terminally ill patient brings with it complex questions and is not always simple. For example, under certain circumstances when there is no hope of recovery, he said physicians should have the option of withholding nutrients and water from a dying patient. Coburn said he has done that in the past. “If somebody does not want a feeding tube, I won’t put a feeding tube down,” he said.
Perfectly in keeping with morality and ethics as we understood them in 1998, but at that point Michael Schiavo had only just given up his heart-breaking quest to rehabilitate Terri Schiavo. In 2005, in this ghastly season of the martyr, things are a wee bit different:
Among them was Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma and a family practice doctor, who said in an interview, “I don’t think you have to examine her. All you have to do is look at her on TV. Any doctor with any conscience can look at her and know that she does not have a terminal disease and know that she has some function.”
The other doctor in the Senate, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), disagrees slightly with Coburn’s newfound understanding of the moral and ethical landscape. Terri Schiavo must be examined. (He has yet to wholly abandon his Hippocratic oath, it seems.) —Luckily, examining her is simplicity itself: all you have to do is look at her, on TV, as a doctor with any conscience:
In a speech last week on the Senate floor, Frist said that “speaking more as a physician than as a U.S. senator,” he believed there was “insufficient information to conclude that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state.”
Frist—who as a surgeon performed more than 150 heart and lung transplants—said his conclusion was based on a review of footage of the brain-damaged Florida woman whose parents are seeking to reconnect her feeding tube.
Now, I realize it may seem silly to speak about shame in an age when pundits have no qualms about accusing a sitting judge of plotting murder solely because they disagree with his interpretation of the law and a notedly lousy con artist is called with a straight face to give his own shameless diagnosis, but darn it, we’ve got to try. Let’s follow Michael Bassik’s suggestion and help Dr. Frist launch his post-Senate career as the world’s only video-consulting physician!
Are you sick? Injured? Worried about a medical problem, but can’t afford a physician? Well, worry no longer! Because Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, MD, doesn’t even need to see you to make a diagnosis and prescribe care.
Bassik says, “Take a digital picture or video of your medical problem—tennis elbow, acne, runny nose, hemorrhoids, or whatever ails you—and send it to the doctor in charge of the US Senate and your health care.”
And here’s the Flickr archive thus far. Upload and tag your own. —Hell, it’s cheaper than universal health care.
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I'll leave it to the comments, then, to mutter darkly about how for the past couple of days I haven't been able to get the phrase Easter Coup out of my head. —Shame? Laughter? Mockery? What?
Hello, Kip. We know you are alive but you have not answered repeated e-mails from various family members. Maybe your e-mail address has changed and this is the only way to reach you. Let me know.