Portugal Legalizes Euthanasia; Nevada Legislature Approves Assisted Suicide

By Wesley J. Smith Alas. The president of Portugal just signed into law a bill legalizing euthanasia by lethal injection. It is not limited to the terminally ill — which is at least honest, since that is not what euthanasia/assisted suicide is really all about.  From the Reuters story: The law specifies that people would be allowed to …

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Bioethicists: Euthanasia Okay for ‘Unjust Social Conditions’

By Wesley J. Smith Editor’s note. Wesley and Alex Schadenberg are teaming up to address the American and Canadian experience with euthanasia and assisted suicide at the 2023 National Right to Life Convention. For more information, go to https://nrlconvention.com/product-category/2023-registration. Once killing the sufferer becomes a societally acceptable means for ending suffering, there becomes no end to the “suffering” that justifies human termination. We …

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Texas ‘Futile Care’ Law May Soon Be Less Authoritarian

By Wesley J. Smith Texas’s infamous “futile care” law (contained within TADA, the Texas Advanced Directives Act) looks to soon become less authoritarian. Under current law, a patient in the ICU can be cut off from wanted treatment based on the doctor’s perception of his or her quality of life. If the MD thinks the wanted treatment is “inappropriate,” …

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Peter Singer Compares Abortion to Turning Off a Computer

By Wesley J. Smith This is the kind of thinking that results from rejecting the intrinsic moral value of human life. Princeton University bioethicist Peter Singer — who is most famous for secularly blessing infanticide — just compared abortion to turning off a computer. He first claims that should an AI [Artificial Intelligence] ever become “sentient,” turning it off …

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A Biden Second Term Threatens Freedom of Religion

By Wesley J. Smith President Biden is running for reelection. His video announcement claims that the primary issue before the country is whether “there will be more or less freedom.” I agree with him. Only, he is the candidate of less freedom. The Biden administration has been an implacable foe of freedom of religion. That “first liberty” …

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NYT Op-Ed Pushes Assisted Suicide for the Mentally Ill

By Wesley J. Smith The phony argument that legalized assisted suicide will permanently be limited to the terminally ill took a big hit by a New York Times op-ed in which an oft-suicidal Canadian philosophy professor, Clancy Martin, argues that mentally ill people who are suicidal should receive help from doctors to die. Martin’s first paragraph makes clear why …

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Dutch Expand Euthanasia to Children Ages One to Twelve

By Wesley J. Smith Because of course they do. Once euthanasia is accepted by a society, it is a one-way street, continually expanding the killable castes. The Dutch already allowed euthanasia for ages twelve and up. Now, it is down to age one. From the NTD News story: The Netherlands has said it will broaden its euthanasia regulations to …

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Why Bioethics Should “Fail”

By Wesley J. Smith Julian Savulescu represents all that I find so objectionable about the mainstream bioethics movement. Rejecting the sanctity/equality of human life, utilitarian in outlook, embracing a eugenics point-of-view, the Oxford professor–what does that tell you?–would lead society in a way opposed by most of the very people bioethics claims to serve. Savulescu …

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Terri Schiavo Case Was a Culture-of-Death Tipping Point

By Wesley J. Smith The March 31, 2005, court-ordered death of Terri Schiavo was an ominous cultural tipping point. As many readers will recall, the legal case began when Terri’s husband Michael Schiavo applied to remove the feeding tube from his profoundly cognitively disabled wife so that she would die by dehydration. When Terri’s parents Bob and Mary Schindler, joined by her siblings Bobby and Suzanne, fought …

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Death Activists Oppose Limits on Virtual Access to Assisted Suicide

By Wesley J. Smith Assisted-suicide advocates say they believe in “strict guidelines to guard against abuse.” They don’t. They write bills as broadly as they deem to guard against abuse.” They don’t. They write bills as broadly as they deem politically expedient and then expand access as people become accustomed to doctors prescribing overdoses to ill, suicidal …

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Euthanasia’s Cultural Collateral Damage: Less Respect for Human Life

By Wesley J. Smith Euthanasia causes egregious cultural damage beyond the direct consequences of allowing the killing — or facilitating the suicides — of sick and disabled people. Eventually, the lives of the elderly, disabled, mentally ill, and seriously ill come to be seen as less valuable than the “healthy” and able-bodied — to the …

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A boost for suicide by self-starvation from the Washington Post

By Wesley J. Smith   We aren’t an anti-suicide culture anymore. Oh, sure. We bemoan those of veterans and teenagers — still — but the elderly, ill, and disabled? Not so much. The assisted-suicide movement boosts suicide in many forms. One of the most insidious is known in euthanasia parlance as VSED, which stands for “voluntary stop …

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