By Wesley J. Smith As many in the bioethics movement push various schemes to ration health care based on “quality of life” — such as the odious QALY (quality adjusted life year) system beloved of the New England Journal of Medicine — some are pushing back and insisting that health-care coverage and treatment public policy be predicated …
Continue reading "Oklahoma Bans ‘Quality of Life’ Health-Care Rationing"
By Wesley J. Smith I have been following — and criticizing — the bioethics movement for more than twenty years. As I see it, the mainstream view seeks to instill a utilitarianist philosophy on both the ethics of medicine and the public policies of health care, including where “common morality” — as the views of …
Continue reading "Catholic medical practice is the great impediment to the culture-subverting mission of the bioethics movement"
Several countries may be ahead of us in this area, but the U.S. is fast catching up. By Wesley J. Smith A few years ago, a Dutch doctor attended her elderly Alzheimer’s disease patient at a nursing home. The doctor’s purpose wasn’t to examine the patient or prescribe new medicines. Rather, she was there to …
Continue reading "Targeting People with Mental Illness and Dementia for Euthanasia"
By Wesley J. Smith New Jersey recently became one of the seven states (plus the District of Columbia) to legalize assisted suicide by statute. In effect, New Jersey sanctions suicide for some residents through its public policy. Now, with COVID-19, New Jersey officials are worried about a spike in suicide caused by the shutdown, so for …
Continue reading "COVID-19 and New Jersey’s Suicide Confusion"
By Wesley J. Smith Editor’s note. When we choose what story to repost that appeared in NRL News Today exactly one year prior, the #1 priority is that the story remains relevant. The battle—and it is tenacious, hand-to-hand combat—to protect freedom of conscience is even tougher today than May 15, 2019. The anti-life forces are …
Continue reading "Medical Conscience for Me, but Not for Thee"
By Wesley J. Smith If Joe Biden is elected president in November, oncologist and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel, the former vice president’s chief campaign health-care adviser, will almost certainly control the new administration’s health policies, perhaps even as secretary of health and human services. That is bad news. Emanuel was a prime architect of the Affordable Care …
Continue reading "Ezekiel Emanuel Wants to Control Your Health Care"
By Wesley J. Smith I was disappointed in Governor Andrew Cuomo’s dour statement that “we will never be the same” and we that we won’t “get back to normal. There will be a new normal.” I understand he is dealing with excruciating issues of life and death, but given the history of the United States, such pessimism …
Continue reading "COVID-19 Adult Stem-Cell Trials"
Consider the creeping normalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Western societies in recent decades. We should be disturbed. By Wesley J. Smith death is in the air. No, I am not referring to the coronavirus. The pathogen I mean is a cultural pandemic, the embrace of doctor-prescribed suicide and of administered homicide as acceptable responses …
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By Wesley J. Smith The Dutch Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that doctors could legally carry out euthanasia on people with advanced dementia who had earlier put their wishes in writing even if they could no longer confirm them because of their illness. The ruling is a landmark in Dutch euthanasia legislation which up to now had required patients …
Continue reading "Dutch Supreme Court Approves Euthanasia for Dementia"
By Wesley J. Smith The National Center for Health Statistics has published an alarming report about the increasing suicide rate — which has been increasing at 2 percent per year since 2006. From the report (my emphasis): This report highlights trends in suicide rates from 1999 through 2018. During this period, the age-adjusted suicide rate increased 35%, …
Continue reading "We Need to Worry about Suicide Contagion, Too"
Consider the creeping normalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Western societies in recent decades. We should be disturbed. By Wesley J. Smith DEATH is in the air. No, I am not referring to the coronavirus. The pathogen I mean is a cultural pandemic, the embrace of doctor-prescribed suicide and of administered homicide as acceptable …
Continue reading "The Jack Kevorkian Plague"
How can a doctor be imprisoned for obeying the Hippocratic Oath? Lastra is a licensed professional and the court decided that refusing to abort constituted a “failure to comply with the duties of a public official”…
Continue reading "Argentinian Doctor Sentenced to Prison for Refusing to Terminate Pregnancy"