# Murder or Heroism? or ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 23, 2006, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688 "2006-07-23T07:06:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/21 "2006-07-31T19:21:05Z")
Sailboat is right. Why did these patients have to be euthanized? So that the medical personel could be evactuated without leaving patients behind. So they resorted to murder to avoid breaching their duty not to abandon patients under their care. In retrospect, I guess they might have resorted to cannibalism a bit early. > **[The Onion | America's Finest News Source.](https://www.theonion.com/)** > > The Onion brings you all of the latest news, stories, photos, videos and more from America's finest news source. ---
**Author:** ![yelimS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/54ee81/32.png) [@yelimS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yelimS)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/22 "2006-07-31T20:51:04Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Got a link? Because the first “to” in that quote is probably either “no” or “the”, which makes a big difference (probably “the”). At any rate, I think we need more facts than presented in the OP to make a decision. [/QUOTE] “The very sick pasients had no opportunity to leave and chose not to.”? Murderers by killing someone who would have died shortly after? Heroes by risking their own lifes to spare someone of a short moment of suffering? Wow, I’m just like Socie today. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/23 "2006-08-01T11:11:46Z")
No electricity means no ventilator. However under the circumstances I see no reason why one female doctor and two female (?) nurses should hang around to be raped and probably murdered. Hospitals get raided - drugs. Possibly one should check how many other patients were evacuated, probably quite a lot, city hospitals tend to have rather a large number of patients. I can see why the DA’s case looks pretty solid, prosecutors tend to omit little details that would get a case thrown out of court. I’m not keen on euthenasia, but am well aware that doctors sometimes ease the passing, in my view it should remain a grey area. My father was effectively killed, he was dying of stomach cancer, in a great deal of pain, and the surgeon performed an op that had no chance of success (even for the non squeamish, a description would be unpleasant - let’s just say you can’t operate on Jello). If anyone attempted to prosecute the surgeon, I would not be impressed. In this case, if they were four out of four hundred, then their circumstances were exceptional. I wonder what would have happened to those four patients when rioters turned up looking for drugs ? I can see a pretty good defence - the trio are not, to my understanding, obligated to look after patients regardless of risks to their own lives. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/24 "2006-08-01T11:39:44Z")
[QUOTE=FRDE] No electricity means no ventilator. However under the circumstances I see no reason why one female doctor and two female (?) nurses should hang around to be raped and probably murdered. Hospitals get raided - drugs. I wonder what would have happened to those four patients when rioters turned up looking for drugs ? [/quote] [Is there actually any truth to the claims of rape and pillage during the hurricane and its aftermath?](http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1563532,00.html) ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/25 "2006-08-01T13:00:38Z")
[QUOTE=Szlater] [Is there actually any truth to the claims of rape and pillage during the hurricane and its aftermath?](http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1563532,00.html) [/QUOTE] I see what you mean But from what I saw on TV at the time - the place looked like a jungle ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/26 "2006-08-02T04:40:11Z")
If my mother were one of the “victims,” I would thank the doctors for their decision. Legally, though, they’re probably SOL. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/27 "2006-08-02T06:23:44Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] …Why did these patients have to be euthanized? So that the medical personel could be evactuated without leaving patients behind. So they resorted to murder to avoid breaching their duty not to abandon patients under their care…[http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33574](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33574) [/QUOTE] Their “duty” does not include risking their own lives. Legally it doesn’t make a difference if the patients consented, but morally and ethically it makes a huge difference. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/28 "2006-08-02T15:49:50Z")
Of course health care providers can’t be legally obligated to provide care at risk of their lives. What I mean is that they euthanized those patients so they could evacuate with a clear conscience, thinking to themselves, “A good doctor wouldn’t leave a patient behind. I’m a good doctor, so I can’t leave a patient behind. Therefore, I must kill the patients to be a good doctor”. Great logic there. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/29 "2006-08-02T16:55:48Z")
[QUOTE=PBear42] If my mother were one of the “victims,” I would thank the doctors for their decision. [/QUOTE] Really? [QUOTE=AuntiePam from the article in question] "The doctor, who finally fled her hospital late last week in fear of being murdered by the armed looters, said: “This was not murder, this was compassion. They would have been dead within hours, **if not days.** We did not put people down. What we did was give comfort **to the end.** ” Bolding mine – “if not days”? Because if some of these patients would truly have survived for **days** , that puts a different light on things, doesn’t it? [/QUOTE] So if the doctor in question actually said that some of the patients would have lived DAYS, you would still have wanted your mother killed, even knowing that help certainly should have arrived within one day\*, not “days”? \*The fact that the government completely fell down on the job and help did not arrive in 24 hours, or even in “days”, could not have been predicted by any reasonable person. Clearly the US government that flew the Berlin Airlift 50 years ago could have handled Katrina aid, for example. So that’s an anomaly. Assuming that the doctor wasn’t lying, and several patients would have lived days, and that (excepting the bizarre incapacity of the current executive branch of the United States) rescue within a day or two was certain, you’d still suggest killing? Is that you, Jack Kevorkian? Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2006, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/30 "2006-08-03T00:01:33Z")
I understand that most people, including you apparently, get wigged out over euthanasia. I don’t. What you’re saying is that these people were required to suffer a slow and painful death, because maybe they could have been rescued. (In the event, they wouldn’t have been.) I disagree. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2006, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/31 "2006-08-03T03:25:05Z")
On first blush, I would say neither murderers nor heroes, just doctors making a triage judgment call. I think it is at least conceivable that it was the best decision at the time. I assume that even under Louisiana law, capital murder guarantees a jury trial. I hope that whatever legalistic prejudices animate the prosecution, the jury may be more lenient. ---
**Author:** ![MerryMagdalen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@MerryMagdalen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MerryMagdalen)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2006, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/32 "2006-08-03T09:50:34Z")
[QUOTE=Sailboat] Really? So if the doctor in question actually said that some of the patients would have lived DAYS, you would still have wanted your mother killed, even knowing that help certainly should have arrived within one day\*, not “days”? Assuming that the doctor wasn’t lying, and several patients would have lived days, and that (excepting the bizarre incapacity of the current executive branch of the United States) rescue within a day or two was certain, you’d still suggest killing? Sailboat [/QUOTE] There may be different definitions of surviving “for days.” Surviving is not the same as “living”. Some people are on ventilators temporarily (eg right after surgery), and some are on them for a very long time (there are long term care facilities for them). As medical technology improves, without similar improvements in human foresight, older people are left on vent machines long after they may have wanted to be. I may be biased, but I’d like to think that these were several very old and basically terminal people who were given assistance in shuffling off the mortal coil that modern medicine had wrapped around them. I know nothing about the patients in this case, so feel free to correct my assumptions. I am neither a doctor nor a nurse, but I do see patients in this condition. I would like to think that there is not a doctor that I know who would make a decision of this magnitude lightly. I think the triage explantion is the correct one. (But as I said, feel free to correct.) ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/33 "2006-08-04T04:00:39Z")
I’ve been giving this a great deal of thought. And have taken the time to read all the links carefully and various other materials available through Google. I’d like to flesh out a little why I think Dr. Pou and nurses Budo and Landry did the right thing in a difficult situation. Though I certainly recognize it’s a subject on which reasonable minds can differ. To me, the crucial thing is that the system had broken down. Ordinarily, we don’t euthanize people without their express consent, but that is in the context of being able to render palliative care. (And, to answer a question posed earlier, yes, we often euthanize people with their consent, though the method, IMU, is typically by withholding food and/or fluids, which is why the Hemlock Society - Derek Humpheys debate has receded in importance.) Here, the patients were going to be abandoned. Awful conditions, no ventilation, no saline drips and no morphine or other pain management. I agree, and imagine 'most everyone would agree, that the best alternative would have been to evacuate these patients so they could die of natural causes while receiving palliative care. Unfortunately, for reasons I’ll discuss next, that wasn’t an option. Second, yes, this was a triage situation, but it wasn’t Dr. Pou, et al. who were making that decision, It was the folks administering the evacuation efforts. Simply put, they couldn’t rescue everyone in need, so priorities had to be established. To save these four patients would have meant that at least four others in need, and probably many more than four because this would have been a labor intensive evacuation, would have had to be ignored. Bear in mind that these were terminal patients. “Rescuing” them meant only moving them to a place where they could die with the dignity we ordinarily expect. Whereas the people who would have been pushed down the evac list could be rescued in fact, i.e., preserved to live full lives. In an ideal world, such decisions don’t have to be made. In that time and place, they did. I can’t and don’t fault the evacuators for making that judgment. This, then, was the context of what happened. The “right” choice wasn’t available, only two “wrong” ones: euthanasia or abandonment. What to do? As I said, reasonable minds can differ, but IMHO, Dr. Pou et al. made the right choice, the one I would have wanted them to make if it were me or mine If someone wants to take the other side, I’m happy to listen. After all, ultimately, this is a societal decision and I’ve been outvoted before. But please work within the constraints of the situation as it happened. Accepting that evacuation wasn’t available, why would you prefer abandonment to euthanasia? ---
**Author:** ![OliverTwistofLime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/b487fb/32.png) [@OliverTwistofLime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverTwistofLime)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/34 "2006-08-04T07:53:23Z")
None of us know all of the facts that occured…That will probably be brought out in trial. Murder to me = illegal killing It appears that the killing was illegal and therefore murder…Nonetheless fortunately in the US, there is no fixed penalty for every similar case. Speaking as a physician, it is the Dr’s duty to relieve pain and suffering as well as just treating the medical or surgical problem…I suppose that in doing so, this may approach illegal killing…I say give the Dr. and nurses a break in this case. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/35 "2006-08-05T15:53:55Z")
I’ve been speaking of the ethical side. The legal side is more bleak for Dr. Pou, et al. The most likely “break” in a situation like this is that the State chooses not to prosecute, usually with the consent of next of kin. What the news stories are about is that the Louisiana attorney general authorized arrests and referral to a grand jury. The grand jury isn’t required to indict, so that’s the second opportunity for a break. But, the grand jury hears only from the prosecution (Dr. Pou, et al. may testify, if they choose, but their lawyers don’t get to make arguments to the jury), so, if the evidence adduced in the affidavit linked above is confirmed, indictment seems likely. Next is the trial. Two issues. First, was it euthanasia or palliative care? (Based on Dr. Pou’s statements, it’s pretty clear to me it was the former, at least as to her, but maybe there’s more evidence, or maybe her statements were misquoted in some small but important way.) Second, should the jury nonetheless decline to convict in light of the circumstances? Thing is that this second issue - which is called jury nullification - has to happen spontaneously in the jury room. Defense counsel isn’t allowed to ask for it. If s/he does, it’s grounds for a mistrial. Assuming a conviction, the last opportunity for a break is pardon. That is, of course, a highly politicized process. Whether Dr. Pou, et al. would have any reasonable prospect for relief from that quarter is more than I can guess. As to the earlier stages, I’m not optimistic. ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2006, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/36 "2006-08-06T05:23:52Z")
I think the doctor and nurses acting with the best intentions at the time and in the circumstances. Were they going to wade through floods with dying people on their backs, or leave them to die in the hospital anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2006, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688/37 "2006-08-06T05:55:41Z")
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman] No I can’t. A better question pertaining to my post would be “Can you cite a legal statute, anywhere, that says a doctor may kill you without your consent if he doesn’t have treatment available.” No I can’t either. The Shiavo case comes to mind. Perhaps some one can provide the statute you require that permitted the doctor in charge of that case to allow the plug being pulled on Terri. [/QUOTE] That case comes to mind for what reason? How many of the four patients killed here were already brain dead? And if you’re looking for the cite, feel free to peruse that incredibly long thread about the case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-or-heroism-or/365688.md?page=1)