When assisted suicide is first proposed for legalization, we are assured by death activists that strict guidelines will protect against abuse. But they don’t mean it. Once the laws pass, the supposed protections — which are always flaccid to begin with — are soon redefined by activists and the media as “barriers,” et voila, the laws are soon loosened. It’s all a con, but people seem to fall for it every time. This pattern can be seen vividly playing out in Victoria, Australia. The state was the first in that country to legalize assisted suicide, and now the government is making more people eli
Fetal personhood is a controversial issue that deserves respectful debate. But the New England Journal of Medicine just published a screed by two Ph.D.s associating its advocates with past slave-holding racists and — by strong implication — devaluing unborn human life as having zero intrinsic value.
Euthanasia/assisted suicide “protective guidelines” don’t really protect against abuse. They mostly serve as window dressings to make people comfortable with killing the sick. And soon after legalization, the vaunted protections are redefined by activists and the media as “barriers” to death, which become the pretext for loosening the already slack guidelines. The speed at which that happens varies, but the pattern rarely fails. Here’s an example. In Canada, a person is supposed to explicitly request and consent to being killed by a lethal jab. But a dementia patient was recently euthanized at
Once we decided that killing is an acceptable answer to suffering, the kind of suffering that qualifies us to be made dead continually expands. Now, an elderly British couple have committed joint assisted suicide at a Swiss termination clinic to avoid future widowhood and increasing fragility — in other words, to eliminate future suffering. From the Daily Record story: A devoted couple who “couldn’t bear to be apart” have died together at a Swiss assisted dying clinic after sending emails to their relatives to let them know. Neither Michael Posner, 97, nor his wife Ruth, 96, had a terminal ill
I have always believed that liberals should be leading opponents of assisted suicide. After all, two of the core tenets of liberalism are (supposed to be) protecting vulnerable people from exploitation and promoting equality among all people. But other than disability-rights activists, most liberals tend to support legalization based on “choice.” Mega author J.K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame, is definitely a political liberal. Indeed, her activism pushing against gender ideology is founded in protecting children and securing women’s private spaces. Now, with legalization having passed the U.K
ALS is a catastrophic terminal disease that, within a few years of diagnosis (the physicist Stephen Hawking was an exception), eventually causes total paralysis. It is also a tragic condition that euthanasia/assisted suicide activists zealously wield to justify killing as an acceptable answer to suffering. Now, the understandable fear of ALS is being deployed by academic advocates as a means of breaking the (U.S.) requirement for a six-month terminal diagnosis and self-administration in assisted suicide. In jurisdictions where MAiD [the euphemism for assisted suicide that seeks to turn life-en
When assisted suicide/euthanasia is legalized, people who are eligible to be killed because they are seriously ill may become objectified by their societies. For example, they may be thought of as so many organ farms to be harvested after their lives are ended. Such objectification of the sick can be infectious. In California, there is a new research program called Last Gift that seeks people with “life-shortening” conditions who also have HIV to be experimented on — not to find cures or ways to extend their lives, but to better understand the virus. From the Last Gift research subject solicit
An article in the Daily Mail sounds the alarm that permitting infant euthanasia — i.e., infanticide — is under serious consideration in Canada: Canada‘s assisted suicide laws have continued rapidly expanding in recent years, with a group of doctors now pushing for disabled newborn babies to be euthanized.…As assisted deaths have become a major part of Canada’s health care system, the Quebec College of Physicians suggested legalizing euthanasia for infants born severely ill. Canada has jumped so enthusiastically into the euthanasia abyss that I have little doubt that infanticide will eventually
A large scientific study has concluded that women who have had an “induced abortion” were more likely to experience mental conditions than were women who have given birth. The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, followed 28,721 women who induced abortions and 1,228,807 who gave birth in hospitals in Quebec, Canada, between 2006 and 2022. The results were striking: In this population-based study of more than 1.2 million pregnancies, having an induced abortion was associated with an increased risk of hospitalization for a mental disorder more than a decade later. Compared wi
Wesley J. Smith joined George Noory on Best of Coast to Coast AM to discuss human exceptionalism and euthanasia. He defines human exceptionalism for listeners and explains why it’s such an essential concept for medicine and ethics. He also discusses how euthanasia has taken the world by storm, how it’s a betrayal of Hippocratic principles, and why he’s against euthanasia in any and all circumstances.
Opponents of euthanasia have been screaming about Canada’s god-awful euthanasia machine for years. And it keeps getting worse. Now, the mainstream media — usually in the tank for assisted suicide — has finally noticed, as demonstrated by a thoroughly researched and objectively presented story by Elaina Plott Calabro. It’s a long piece, but it’s well worth everyone’s time. Calabro discusses examples of doctors who have killed hundreds of patients, people who have had themselves killed because they couldn’t access proper support services, and many other cases. Euthanasia is Canada’s fifth-leadin
Legalizing euthanasia/assisted suicide, abortion, and transgender interventions for dysphoric children is only the beginning of the ongoing destruction of Hippocratic moral values in medicine. Once such interventions are legal, activists next insist that they become readily available. But many (and I hope most) doctors want nothing to do with causing death or interfering with the normal functioning of healthy bodies. Indeed, many assisted suicide, abortion, and gender ideologues complain that too few doctors willingly participate in these procedures, as is sometimes protected by the law. These
Another “strict guideline to prevent abuse” of assisted suicide has just been euthanized in Washington State, continuing an ongoing trend of loosening assisted suicide laws and practices. The legalization law requires annual reports to be issued by the state to promote transparency. Well, from now on, opaqueness will be the order of the day. From the Medical Futility blog, by pro-assisted-suicide activist Thaddeus Mason Pope (whose blog is a reliable source of information on these issues): Like almost all other aid-in-dying jurisdictions, the Washington State statute requires the “department o
The Christian, pro-life organization Liberty Counsel Action has distributed a report that raises the disturbing question of whether U.S. water systems contain traces of drugs used in chemical abortions as well as human tissue from terminated fetuses. Here’s the issue as I understand it. After surgical abortions, the remains are incinerated. But, as of 2023, some 63 percent of abortions have occurred at home (chemical abortions), with the result that hundreds of thousands of deceased fetuses have been flushed down the toilet over the years. Moreover, the active chemicals in abortion pills also
Geriatric suicides used to be considered a tragedy. But these days, increasingly, they are celebrated — whether Compassion and Choices (formerly, the more honestly named Hemlock Society) teaching elderly people to starve themselves to death (VSED), joint lethal jabs of aged married couples in places like the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada, or suicides facilitated at Swiss death clinics. These clinics are proud of their toll. One Swiss clinic even “prioritizes people who are elderly but not seriously ill,” while others willingly engage in geriatric assisted suicide of depressed elders if they
Wesley J. Smith recently participated in a Symposium hosted by the Human Life Review. He was asked to react to the following statement: In the decades between Roe v. Wade and Dobbs, most prolifers believed that Americans were more or less opposed to legalized abortion on demand because a) this was the case in 1973; b) it was imposed on us from above by “raw judicial power,” rather than legislated; and c) surveys repeatedly showed substantial percentages of Americans being disquieted by abortion, especially when you got beyond the hard cases and the earliest weeks of pregnancy. In the first yea
The Southern Poverty Law Center was once a courageous and righteous organization that, among other real achievements, bankrupted the KKK and Aryan Nations in civil court. This, at a time when acting against such vile groups openly was truly dangerous. Alas, those righteous days are long gone. Today, the SPLC is a radical progressive activist organization that (one might say) hates orthodox Christianity as much as it does racists by labeling conservative Christian organizations “hate groups” because they oppose radical gender ideology and abortion. This practice is dangerous. After SPLC mislabe
The New York Times Magazine has a very long article out today highlighting cases of nonterminally ill people being killed by doctors in Canada. It is too long to comment on the whole thing.
The assisted suicide movement is slowly metastasizing throughout the West. Delaware just became the twelfth U.S. jurisdiction allowing doctors to intentionally prescribe a lethal overdose of drugs as a supposed “treatment” for a terminal illness. (Why such an event pleases certain politicians and activists is beyond me. We are talking about endorsing suicide.) Now, France is on the verge of legalizing assisted suicide/euthanasia as the General Assembly just passed a bill by a comfortable 305-199 margin. From The Guardian: The legislation would allow a medical team to decide if a patient is eli
New York is close to passing a bill to legalize assisted suicide. Having passed the assembly, it is currently being considered in the senate. I read the bill, and much of it consists of the usual obfuscating definitions and pretenses seen in all such proposals. But a few of the provisions struck me as particularly mendacious. First, it defines prescribing poison as a “medical practice.” From S. 138: “Medical aid in dying” means the medical practice of a physician prescribing medication to a qualified individual that the individual may choose to self-administer to bring about death. Facilitatin
The Canadian health care system is melting down — and yet the country still embraces radical euthanasia policies. Here’s a current example: A woman injured in an auto accident has waited nearly two years for a consultation with a spinal surgeon — despite now having to use a wheelchair. So, she wants to come to the U.S. for a simple diagnosis, which will cost $40,000! From the CBC story: A London woman injured in a car crash says she’s left with no choice but to pay to see a doctor in the United States after waiting almost two years for a diagnosis from an Ontario spine surgeon. Sydney Gesualdi
Peter Singer, the internationally influential emeritus bioethics professor from Princeton, is known as a moral philosopher — which in his case is an oxymoron. Not only has he repeatedly endorsed the moral propriety of infanticide, but he has also yawned at bestiality and suggested experimenting on cognitively disabled people rather than animals if they are not “persons,” among other ethically depraved opinions. Singer and another philosophy professor — Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek — just took to the opinion pages of the New York Times to endorse geriatric suicide. It seems a noted 90-year-old psy
The New York Times has a long — and, I must say, generally fair — discussion of the contentious issue of embryo research. I won’t belabor most of the issues raised, but I want to highlight one aspect of the column that illustrates how some “expert ethicists” consider it a part of their job to conjure ways to bust through established moral limits. When embryonic research first started, we were told that there would be a strict 14-day limit on researching embryos in petri dishes. At the time, I said it was all baloney, that the “ethicists” established the “14-day rule” only because embryos could
I always enjoy Kathryn Lopez’s ongoing Corner feature in which she posts about news stories that “caught my eye.” So I decided to blatantly steal the concept to discuss euthanasia/assisted suicide stories that have recently been in the news. (When ready to publish full article, combine lists so that number 1 below becomes number 4.)
Twenty years ago today, Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube was withdrawn with court approval, commencing a cruel deprivation of sustenance that resulted in her death by dehydration 13 days later. For those who may not remember, the case became the most hotly contested bioethics issue since Roe v. Wade as Terri’s husband Michael fought in courts and in the media with her parents and siblings over his desire to remove all Terri’s food and fluids. In the end, he won — and Terri died. Now, two bioethicists on the influential Hastings Center blog decry the case as wrongly brought. They get some facts wro
Switzerland is the world’s suicide tourism capital. Indeed, for the price of transportation and about $11,000, you can be helped to make yourself dead at one of the country’s notorious suicide clinics. Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland if not done for a “selfish” purpose and if the soon-to-be-dead person has decisional capacity. (Why charging more than $10,000 to help make one dead isn’t considered “selfish” is beyond me, because it sure ain’t altruistic!) It used to be that each such assisted suicide had to be at least cursorily investigated by the authorities. But now, that minimal pr
I previously wrote about pending Oregon and Vermont legislation to do away with the requirement that only doctors be allowed to legally assist suicides. Now, it’s Washington’s turn, with a proposal to allow “qualified medical providers” to prescribe poison, defined as a licensed physician, physician’s assistant, or advanced practice registered nurse. I previously opined about why I think this is a very bad idea, so I won’t belabor the points further. The Washington bill also speeds up the waiting period between the first and second request for poison pills for some suicidal patients: Notwithst
Yesterday, I posted about a Vermont bill that would allow nondoctors to prescribe death. I found out today that Oregon has similar legislation pending that would allow “providers” to lethally prescribe. SB 1003 specifies that “provider” can mean a licensed physician, a licensed physician assistant, or a licensed nurse practitioner. I wouldn’t trust a PA or NP to diagnose me with six months to live. Would you? That is not a putdown. These valuable medical professionals’ primary roles are to provide generalized care, monitor and manage chronic conditions, and provide wellness services. But they
Vermont has repeatedly expanded its assisted suicide law since it first passed. Nonresidents are allowed to receive lethal prescriptions, and assisted suicide can be prescribed via Zoom or Skype. Now, a bill has been filed that would allow nondoctor “clinicians” to prescribe death. From H.B. 75: This bill proposes to authorize naturopathic physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to participate in the processes established in Vermont’s patient choice at end-of-life laws. It would also allow naturopathic physicians to sign and issue do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and clinician
Pro-assisted-suicide activists like to say the unethical act is legal in Montana. Strictly speaking, that isn’t true. Some years ago, a muddled Montana supreme court ruling refused to create a state constitutional right to assisted suicide as requested by activists because the Montana constitution’s legislative history made it clear that the court couldn’t. But wanting to legalize it anyway, the judges declared somehow that assisted suicide wasn’t against public policy of the state and that consent to such an act was a defense to a criminal charge. Montana has been in that muddled legal state
