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Editorials
Wednesday, November 29, 2000Duckworth saved
a public treasureThe issue: Bishop Museum director W. Donald Duckworth has announced his retirement.
For more than a century, Bishop Museum has been the storehouse of Hawaii's cultural identity. So anything that happens at such an important institution becomes a matter of intense public interest.
Director W. Donald Duckworth's decision to retire next summer will bring to a close 17 years of seismic change at Bishop Museum. His tenure has been marked by controversy from beginning to end.
Shortly after his arrival, he shook up the museum community by making severe staff reductions. He then oversaw a dramatic shift in the philosophical direction of the museum, an institution whose ability to adapt to modern times and public needs had been glacial.
Today he ends his tenure enmeshed in controversy over the botched handling of the Forbes Cave artifacts. As the public face of the museum, Duckworth has been a lightning rod for harsh public criticism, including from this newspaper.
He has borne these trials with a bemused smile and detached aplomb that belies his background as a scientist.
But these criticisms should not color Duckworth's real accomplishments at the museum. As revealed in an exclusive interview in today's Star-Bulletin, Duckworth was hired away from the prestigious Smithsonian Institute both to rescue a disorganized, dispirited Bishop Museum from looming bankruptcy, and to throw open the doors of the formerly cloistered campus to Hawaii's citizens.
That Duckworth succeeded impressively on both counts is his legacy. Despite the state Legislature's unfair and brutal financial cuts to the museum budget, the Bishop Museum has been transformed from a dusty relic to a place where the public interacts with state-of-the-art scientific exhibitry. The museum also enjoys the best reputation it has ever had among nationally ranked museums.
Bishop Museum recently received a thumbs-up reaccreditation from the notoriously tough-minded American Association of Museums. As the report concludes, "The committee has found an institution that has developed a mission, a vision and values which speak to its audience; the unique scientific, historic, cultural and nature needs of its region; and its increasing role as a vital educational resource on a local, regional and international level. The museum has been found to achieve its mission with distinction."
Duckworth will be difficult to replace.
Dutch law could guide
doctor-assisted suicide
AS some states cautiously deal with the issue of physician-assisted suicide, the Dutch parliament has enacted legislation to fully legalize the practice. The action follows seven years of semiofficial tolerance of euthanasia and completes a legalization process that could be a useful blueprint for legislators in the United States.
Since 1994, Oregon has allowed physician-assisted suicide of patients with less than six months to live. Forty-three people in Oregon have been assisted by doctors in taking their own lives since it became law. Hawaii's Legislature has rejected the recommendation of a blue-ribbon panel to legalize physician-assisted suicide and physician-assisted death, with appropriate safeguards.
Congress responded to the Oregon law by prohibiting federal funds to be spent for physician-assisted death. The U.S. House has adopted a bill that would restrict the practice further but President Clinton threatened to veto the bill. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a physician's purpose in prescribing painkilling drugs "is, or may be, only to ease his patient's pain."
In the Netherlands, euthanasia has been a crime punishable by up to 12 years in prison. However, the Dutch parliament in 1993 enacted legislation that allowed doctors to avoid prosecution by following guidelines for physician-assisted suicide. For example, the request must be voluntary, persistent and independent by a patient undergoing irremediable and unbearable suffering. Switzerland, Colombia and Belgium similarly tolerate euthanasia.
The new law will allow patients to leave a written request for euthanasia. Doctors will have the right to use their own discretion when patients become too physically or mentally ill to decide for themselves. "Doctors should not be treated as criminals. This will create security for doctors and patients alike," said Dutch Health Minister Els Borst, who drafted the bill. "Something as serious as ending one's life deserves openness."
In the United States, the issue remains highly sensitive. Congress has been hostile toward legalized euthanasia, so Hawaii should look elsewhere for guidance in adopting what the governor's panel described as a law that would be "humane and compassionate to the old and terminally ill."
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
