A grieving mother who is in good health has been accepted for termination by a Swiss suicide clinic. From the New York Post story: A physically healthy British woman heartbroken over the death of her only son is heading to Switzerland to end her own life at an assisted suicide clinic. Wendy Duffy, 56, attempted to take her own life after her son died four years ago — but is soon bound for Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, after her application was accepted by a clinic, according to the London Times. Duffy, a former care worker from the West Midlands, told the Daily Mail that she pa
Assisted suicide is not discussed much at the federal level. But at a recent Senate committee hearing, Senator James Lankford (R., Okla.) asked HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his thoughts on assisted suicide. Kennedy was unequivocal (starting at minute 3:30): Lankford: I want to switch to an issue we have not had a lot of time to talk about and that is assisted suicide. We now have three states, California, Colorado, and Vermont that disability groups are filing against some of the assisted suicide laws because it seems to target those with disabilities and the Americans with Disabi
After a bear was euthanized in California because she paw-swiped a human who owned a house under which the bruin and her cubs were living, there was a popular outcry. Now, a bill has been put in the hopper in the California State Senate promoting “coexistence” between people and wild animals. From S.B. 1135: It is the policy of the state that the management of wildlife shall include an emphasis on the coexistence of humans and wildlife through department-led efforts to reduce, minimize, and mitigate conflicts. These efforts shall also seek to align with the state’s conservation, public safety,
Anyone paying attention knows that the medical establishment does not believe in any restriction on abortion, and moreover, that it should be provided free anytime a woman wants to terminate a pregnancy. For example, a current editorial in The Lancet celebrates the editors’ view that more than 800 million women recently gaining better access to abortion, while decrying “barriers” such as waiting periods (and unstated, ultrasound imaging) that data shows, save the lives of unborn babies: Gains in legal access to abortion are worth celebrating. An analysis between 1994 and 2023 by Katy Mayall an
Once killing becomes an acceptable answer to human suffering, the kinds of “suffering” that justifies killing continually expands. In the Netherlands, where mental illness can provide the pretext for being MAIDed and there are no age limits (including infanticide for disability), it was recently reported that a suicidal autistic teenager was lethally injected in 2023. From the National Post story: Four-and-a-half years after he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a Dutch teen was euthanized at his request. The boy, aged between 16 and 18, had described his life as “joyless.” He’d stru
Chinese doctors murder and organ harvest political prisoners. As detailed in “Killed to Order,” a thoroughly researched new book by Epoch Times senior editor Jan Jekielek, political prisoners such as Falun Gong practitioners and Uygur Muslims are tissue-typed and killed to supply product for the country’s burgeoning transplant black market in human kidneys and livers. This is why the wait for a vital organ in China may be as short as a week, whereas it may take years in countries with ethical transplant systems. The Chinese Communist Party is an unmitigated tyranny, and the government deploys
A Canadian activist has argued that the mentally ill must have access to euthanasia to prevent their committing suicide. From the National Post story: A leading MAID advocate argued to parliamentarians last month that Canada must legalize assisted suicide for the mentally ill, lest those same patients commit suicide. The statement was made at a March 24 parliamentary committee debating the legalization of MAID for Canadians whose “sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness.” Jocelyn Downie, a leading MAID activist since 2004, warned that if the federal government keeps excluding men
Brave new world alert! Scientists used a machine deployed in organ transplant medicine to keep a surgically removed human uterus alive for one day, furthering the goal of being able to use donated uteri experimentally over long periods of time, including for gestation. From the MIT Technology story: The team members want to keep donated human uteruses alive long enough to see a full menstrual cycle. They hope this will help them study diseases of the uterus and learn more about how embryos burrow their way into the organ’s lining at the start of a pregnancy. They also hope that future iteratio
The push for unlimited abortion access is now advancing beyond the issue of “choice.” A newly published article in Ethics, the University of Chicago Press’s prestigious peer-reviewed journal, argues that pregnant minors must abort — even if that requires coercion and force. The authors, a University of British Columbia philosophy professor and an aspiring philosopher, emphasize the fact that minors are children. From “Justice for Girls: On Provision of Abortion as Adequate Care” (citations omitted, my emphases): Both opponents of abortion and liberal defenders of a woman’s right to control her
Planned Parenthood is having a rougher time than it once did. Fifty or so clinics have closed due to financial difficulties associated with defunding from the government. Not to worry! As reported in the New York Times — a California clinic is offering cosmetic procedures to help keep the doors open. First, the Times‘ reporter Alisha Haridasani Gupta, describes the core mission of PP clinics. Notice what she leaves out: Nationwide, Planned Parenthood, which provides birth control, preventive sexual health screenings, prenatal care and primary care for millions of patients, many of them on Medi
As the West lunges toward propagating a right to be made dead, the deleterious societal impacts of being legally “MAIDed” (killed by “medical assistance in dying”) are becoming increasingly clear. A recent professional analysis published in the Psychiatric Times illustrates the lethal influence on mentally ill suicidal people — including youth — in the Netherlands. From “Psychiatric Euthanasia in the Netherlands: Young People, Procedural Medicine, and the Limits of Psychiatry” (citations omitted): Requests for euthanasia on psychiatric grounds have risen sharply, with a disproportionate increa
Most of the media are in the tank (remember Brittany Maynard?) for the assisted suicide/euthanasia agenda and, as a consequence, are primarily interested in reporting on stories of “good deaths.” That criticism does not apply to The Atlantic, which recently published a scathing exposé of the cruelties inherent in Canada’s euthanasia regime. Now, staff writer Elizabeth Bruenig has published an important piece detailing how a mentally ill 31-year-old woman named Eileen Mihich was able to access poison drugs by writing herself a fraudulent prescription for death, which was filled unquestioningly
Euthanasia conjoined with organ harvesting just took a particularly disturbing turn in Spain, where a woman was euthanized and then had part of her face transplanted. From the Catalan News story: Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona has performed the world’s first face transplant with a donor who passed away from euthanasia. Around 100 medical professionals took part in the partial face transplant, a highly complex operation using neurovascular microsurgery techniques that lasted about 24 hours. In presenting the milestone procedure, the healthcare director, Maria José Abadías, highl
The French Senate has said “Non” to legalizing assisted suicide. From the Le Monde story: The Sénat, the French Parliament’s upper house, on Wednesday, January 28, rejected a government-backed draft law on assisted dying that had been billed as one of the country’s most important societal changes in more than a decade. The law easily passed the lower Assemblée Nationale last year but was so watered down by right-wing and centrist lawmakers, in often angry and chaotic debate in the upper chamber, that supporters of the initiative said it no longer made sense. So, what did the “watering down” ac
After restricting funding for primate research for ethical reasons, the National Institutes of Health has followed up by banning funding of fetal tissue research. From the NIH press release: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced a new policy ending the use of human fetal tissue in NIH-supported research, marking a significant milestone in the Trump Administration’s efforts to modernize biomedical science and accelerate innovate. Effective immediately, NIH funds will no longer be used to support research involving human fetal tissue from elective abortions. The policy applies
I really do try to write about other issues. But the awfulness keeps on coming. Yesterday, I called attention to the Canadian bioethicist who claimed that lethal jabs are no different than hip replacements. Today, I came across an awful story out of Australia in which Tony Lewis, age 71 and experiencing Motor Neurone Disease — what we call ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease — has asked for euthanasia because he was denied sufficient financial support for his disability. From the Hello Care report: A Queensland man with Motor Neurone Disease has chosen to access voluntary assisted dying after being de
Canada has leaped into euthanasia’s moral abyss with a smile on its face. Since 2015, killable categories have expanded dramatically, from those whose death is “reasonably foreseeable” — a category that was already so broad you could drive a hearse through it — to the chronically ill, people with disabilities, the frail elderly, and, starting next year, the mentally ill. More than 16,000 Canadians were killed by doctors and nurse practitioners last year. It’s the fifth-most-common cause of death in the country. Many commentators point to these and other facts about Canada’s euthanasia regime t
Freedom of religion is on the ropes in increasingly authoritarian Canada — despite a specific charter guarantee of “freedom of religion and conscience.” Indeed, an Ontario court ruled previously that doctors can be coerced under threat of professional discipline to perform lethal jabs or abortions against their religious beliefs and conscience objections. Why? The court ruled that the unenumerated right of patients to receive any legal procedure paid for by the government superseded the specific charter protection. If doctors don’t want to kill, the court also ruled, they can either provide an
Once someone is considered killable or supported in suicide, they may become objectified so as to be used instrumentally. Such is the case with people requesting to be euthanized. The idea is that they are going to die anyway, want to die — even as they do not receive suicide prevention — so we might as well get good use out of them such as by conjoining their hastened deaths with organ harvesting. This abandonment (in my view) is rife in Canada, where in Ontario, a patient approved for a lethal jab will soon receive a call from the organ procurement society asking for their organs. The Nether
Work continues apace toward the goal of gestating babies outside a woman’s body. Scientists have now implanted human embryos in “organoids” made of tissues that mimic the uterine lining. From, “Researchers are Getting Organoids Pregnant,” published in the MIT Technology Review: In three papers published this week by Cell Press, scientists are reporting what they call the most accurate efforts yet to mimic the first moments of pregnancy in the lab. They’ve taken human embryos from IVF centers and let these merge with “organoids” made of endometrial cells, which form the lining of the uterus. Th
To the surprise of absolutely no one, New York Governor Hochul has said that in January, after some minor changes are added, she will sign the bill legalizing assisted suicide.
With a scribbled signature by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the Land of Lincoln became the 12th state (plus the District of Columbia) to legalize physician-assisted suicide. The new law, which takes effect in September, euphemistically describes assisted suicide as “medical aid in dying”—a pretense that prescribed poisonous overdoses are somehow equivalent to administering healing treatments. Give me a break. The point of “care,” is well, care. The point of assisted suicide is immediate death. So, why do I insist on using “assisted suicide” instead of “medical aid in dying?” Because this issue
On Monday, December 15, Wesley J. Smith appeared on Ave Maria in the Afternoon with Marcus B. Peter to discuss the recent legalization of assisted suicide in Illinois.
Of course Governor Pritzker signed the assisted suicide bill. Was there ever any doubt? Assisted suicide has become part of the progressive policy agenda. The new Illinois law (SB 1950) contains many of the usual provisions and supposed safeguards. Once the law goes into effect next September, these putative protections will quickly be redefined as “obstacles” to a good death and the inevitable process of legal loosening will commence. This is the point at which I usually urge doctors to refuse participation in the killing of their patients. The law does permit doctors to refuse to actually pr
One of my greatest frustrations has been the general silence of suicide prevention organizations in the face of the legalization of assisted suicide in various jurisdictions. To me, this failure has been an abdication of such groups’ core responsibility because it ignores some suicides, does not oppose facilitation of the suicides of the ill and disabled, and does not grapple with the adverse impact that assisted suicide advocacy can have on suicidal people generally. That silence has now ended. The International Association for Suicide Prevention just issued a (not quite strong enough) positi
The Slovenian National Assembly tried to legalize assisted suicide. But the country’s voters had a different idea. From the Euractiv story: Slovenians on Sunday voted to suspend a new law to legalise assisted dying in a referendum held after critics mounted a campaign against the legislation. Around 53 percent of voters had rejected the law, while 47 percent voted in favour, meaning its implementation will be suspended for at least one year. Slovenia’s parliament had approved a law in July allowing assisted dying after a 2004 referendum supported it. But the new vote was called after a civil g
The future that some of us predicted about assisted suicide deployed as a resource saver has come to the U.K. Even as the House of Commons has passed a legalization bill — currently being debated in the House of Lords — the country’s hospice system is collapsing. From the BBC story: Some 380 hospice beds out of around 2,000 lie empty in England because of financial pressures, say bosses. Hospice UK has told BBC News this is up from 300 a year ago and illustrates the severe challenges facing the sector. Beds are left empty to save money — since staffing and caring is costly — and so are unavail
Editors of many of the world’s top scientific and medical journals are destroying or — better stated, perhaps — have destroyed the public’s trust in scientific and medical leadership because these journals can no longer be deemed objective purveyors of truth. Nature and its associated science journals (Nature Portfolio), supposedly the most elite of the lot, are among the worst offenders. For example, in 2024 Nature endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in part because of her support for abortion. Nature also endorsed Biden in 2020. To say the least, blatantly engaging in partisa
The Illinois Legislature has just passed an assisted suicide legalization bill, tying a black bow along with New York’s legalization bill passed a few months ago. Both measures still await signing by the states’ respective governors, which I fear is quite likely as the death agenda is firmly ensconced in blue state liberal/progressive policy on assisted suicide. Should the bills get signed into law, more people will live in jurisdictions (including three of our most populous: California, New York, and Illinois) that validate some suicides and allow doctors to facilitate such deaths than live i
Assisted suicide is not yet legal in Scotland — I have traveled there three times to fight that agenda — but it is a looming threat again. And now, an amendment to the legalization bill has been proposed that would prohibit prevention efforts at or near places where suicidal people’s lives would be ended. From the ADF International press release: A Scottish parliamentarian and member of the Health Committee, Patrick Harvie MSP, has proposed an amendment to Scotland’s controversial “assisted suicide” bill that would criminalise discussion of suicide prevention within a large, undefined public a
