You may have seen the news stories about the two Florida nurses who wished harm on patients with whom they had political disagreements.  Both nurses were afterward disciplined.

I would like to make a simple point about those cases, not about “political violence,” but about medical violence.  First a quick review.

Registered nurse Erik Martindale posted on Facebook, “I will not perform anesthesia for any surgeries or procedures for MAGA [Trump supporters].  It is my right, it is my ethical oath, and I stand behind my education.  I own all of my businesses and I can refuse anyone!”  The post was later taken down – Martindale claims he was hacked – but he has been disciplined.

Labor and delivery nurse Lexie Lawyer put up a video on social media saying that she hoped White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is pregnant, would suffer a fourth-degree tear during the birth of her baby:  “"I hope you f*cking rip from bow to stern and never sh*t normally again, you c*nt."

My point is simple:  What should we have expected when, beginning in the 1970s, we authorized doctors and nurses to kill instead of heal and succor?  Medical schools even rewrote the Hippocratic oath, eliminating any divine sanction and replacing the prohibition of abortion and poisoning with weaselly language about how “my power to take a life ... must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.”

Once we say that it is all right to take innocent human life, it becomes very difficult to say “But only these reasons, not those reasons.”

What kind of world did we think we were making?  A people tends to get exactly what it wants.  It may not like it.