Almost 40 per cent of a
select group of Jewish-Israeli health-care students have come out in favour of
curtailing medical treatment towards the involuntary mass euthanasia of the
severely handicapped.
The ‘shocking’ results were
broadly similar for hypothetical scenarios, whether in a developing African
country or in central Israel, explain the authors of a study based at the Institute
on the Holocaust & Genocide, Jerusalem and Bob Shapell School of Social
Work, Tel Aviv University.
In the opening paragraphs of
the 24-page abstract to their paper, “A Study of the Readiness of
Jewish-Israeli Students in the Health Professions to Authorise and Execute
Involuntary Mass Euthanasia of 'Severely Handicapped' Patients”, Israel
W. Charny and Daphna Fromer write:
“Although
an ethical point of view would call for zero participation
in
the policies which would bring about deaths of patients, it had been predicted that
as many as 15% of the subjects would agree to curtailing treatment, 5% to participate
in planning involuntary mass euthanasia, and 2% to execute the euthanasia
themselves.
“However,
the results were that in Africa 39% agreed to curtail treatment, 17% to plan
euthanasia, and 11 % themselves to terminate the patients' lives; in Israel the
corresponding figures were 38%, 12%, and 9% - the differences between Africa
and Israel were not significant. The study is seen as contributing to emerging
knowledge (in the Milgram
tradition) of the widespread availability of human beings to undertake policies
which harm, hurt and kill other human beings when instructed to do so by a
policy directive”.
“The
combination of Jewish/Israeli identity and being students of the health
professions meant that the subjects in this study personified our
civilization's hopes for the emergence of an ethos of the sacredness of human
life …
“ (however) … a student who refused to curtail treatment in Africa and agreed to curtail treatment in Israel explained the unusual reply thus: 'My decision [in Israel} is this despite the fact that it seems to be a very unethical and unjust position but it may be necessary in times of extreme collective need, and I am able to give this reply because this is my country, its security problems and needs are understood by me and important to me’.”
------------
My
immediate reaction as a journalist with no scientific
background or medical knowledge is that as Jewish Israelis, these students will
have almost certainly completed compulsory service in the military and will be accustomed
to 'obeying orders’ on command. Furthermore, I have attended an IDF recruits’
passing-out parade and seen them throw their berets in the air, yelling 'there
is no other country’.
So
I must ask Charny and Fromer if they have taken their subjects’ military
experience into account as even part explanation for their attitude. My layperson’s
suggestion is that perhaps the terrifying results of their experiments are not
only about ‘survival of the fittest’ but about a soldier’s instinctive self-preservation.
Then
there is an another aspect of medical care – or neglect – that they have chosen to ignore: The uncomfortable
number of people worldwide who staff care establishments for the elderly and otherwise
physically and mentally frail who delight in taking quite cruel advantage of
their patients and then, often too late, find
themselves explaining their behaviour in a court of law.
But
this would never happen in Israel. Heaven forfend!
--------------
·
The 92 participating
students in the experiment intend working as physicians, psychologists and
social workers.
·
Stanley Milgram, himself
Jewish, was a US social psychologist best known for the series of experiments
he conducted on obedience to authority.
©
Natalie Wood (16 March 2019)
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