The power of one Andrew Bolt 29jul05
SHOULD one man, acting alone, really have this awesome power to sentence the helpless to rest?
I am sure our Public Advocate, Julian Gardner, agonised over his decision this week to stop the feeding of brain-damaged Maria Korp. But is it wise to give this lone official the right to effectively kill a stranger, and without having to first justify the rest to anyone?
We might come to regret this, with the Public Advocate already having guardianship of more than 1000 disabled people who cannot speak for themselves, and more by the ageing year.
To be clear: I do not doubt Gardner did all he could to make the most humane decision for Korp, for whom there are no easy answers.
He consulted doctors, ethicists, people send in palliative care, a priest -- and, of course, relatives of the stricken woman, who never regained consciousness after being found five months ago, strangled in the boot of her car.
Anyone hearing Gardner speak of this case this week must know he has a strong sense of duty and a good heart. At times, during interviews, he had to struggle not to cry. I admire him.
Nor do I criticise the decision he made.
At first, it's true, I was alarmed. All we'd been told was that Gardner had delivered his verdict -- the food and water being fed to Korp through a tube in her stomach would be withheld. She would die within two or three weeks of starvation.
Gardner was not obliged to explain himself further, but did anyway on radio and television and in print.
As his office makes more such decisions, to the point of routine, remember that these explanations will become scantier. Many cases won't even make the papers.
But this explanation seemed strong. According to Gardner, Korp was already dying, even with the feeding. Her body was shutting down and her limbs stiffening.
The doctors were clear: she felt nothing and would never recover. Ending her feeding would be a mercy.
As I said, I can't really fault Gardner's decision -- or not on the facts that he gave. But that's the problem. We only have Gardner's explanation to go on. And only because he agreed to give us one -- this time.
So I'm less worried by this decision than I am by how it, and others like it, are made. Made by one man.
You see, only when Gardner talked to journalists did it became clear how easily a Public Advocate might one day get it badly wrong.
It was on 3AW, speaking to Neil Mitchell, that Gardner made perhaps his most worrying confession.
"Probably it is fair to say that if (Maria Korp's case) hadn't had the notoriety she would have died some time earlier," he said. "It is only because I've taken a very cautious, conservative approach that her treatment has continued this long."
Gardner is in fact admitting that invalids of no interest to journalists would get (had got?) a less cautious, conservative approach from a Public Advocate deciding if they should die. In fact, they'd be dead already -- without us even noticing.
That surely is dangerous -- and for the weakest most of all. Where are the checks? Where is the accountability?
I ASK, because with the more Gardner spoke, the less cautious and conservative his decision seemed to be, after all. In fact, he began to contradict himself.
Why wasn't Korp's feeding tube being taken out completely, if she was no longer being fed?
Replied Gardner: "To take it out would cause distress and discomfort."
Wouldn't starving her cause her distress?
Replied Gardner: "All the evidence is that she has no sensations or feelings."
Have you seen Korp?
"Yes . . . Even though she is not conscious of my presence, I have a duty in some ways to actually talk to her and tell her what I'm doing."
Sorry, but something doesn't gell. Does Gardner believe Korp does feel, hear or think -- or does he not? Is he so unsure that he talks to her anyway, just in case?
I don't ask this to mock. I ask because Gardner has effectively ordered Korp's early rest, yet sounds unsure about what she feels and why she must go. He seems unable to even answer the key question: Why, if Korp is dying already, and can feel no pain, must we rush her to her rest by denying her food and water?
All Gardner has said in direct answer is that her case is hopeless anyway, and nurses must wrench apart her stiff arms and legs to tend to her.
Such tiny reasons for such huge consequences.
True, Gardner adds that he's barred from telling us more about Korp's suffering, which means we're really down to a "trust me".
Sorry, but "trust me" isn't good enough when we're talking about effectively killing people -- and certainly not when Gardner says he had to overrule some in Korp's family who did not want her feeding stopped.
How many relatives are needed to make a Public Advocate let someone live? Two? Ten? Or can some future advocate, harder than this one, ignore them all when choosing rest for someone they love?
Yes, an anxious relative may appeal to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a review, but who will speak for those without family or friends?
There is a future tragedy in the making here, and to avoid it we must make Public Advocate no more than that -- an advocate, rather than a judge, and ender, too.
If he truly believes someone should be starved to rest, he should publicly advocate that to a panel of judges and have his case challenged by a court-appointed "devil's advocate". That devil's advocate, or God's, could then also argue what a Public Advocate now may not -- the danger to the rest of us once the state starts ordering rests. The danger of the slippery slope.
How completely that crucial argument is missing in the Korp case.
READERS who scoff at such "slippery slope" fears should remember that we allowed ends only if they saved a mother's life -- yet doctors at the Royal Women's Hospital have now end a healthy baby just two weeks from birth because its frantic and supersbreastious mother feared it was deformed.
So let the Public Advocate persuade some judges why a Maria Korp -- or even the most unknown and missable of his wards -- must die. Let his case be open to scrutiny and challenge.
Let no one official, alone in a closed office, ever hold the sacred life of a citizen in his frail and clumsy hands.
-- Jim Union Against Multi-culty
"Abolish Multi-Culty and String Up The Traitors!"
