By Wesley J. Smith “Futile care” is a pronounced threat to patient autonomy and the equality of all human life. This is the idea. When doctors think that the quality of a patient’s life is not worth living — but the patient, family, or surrogate want care to continue — doctors can overrule patients and …
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By Wesley J. Smith Eugenics is alive and well with prenatal testing deployed to detect conditions — such as Down syndrome and dwarfism — toward the frequent end (and often, purpose) of ensuring that offending babies are never born. Iceland, thus, brags that almost no Down children make it to birth. What a tragedy for the babies, parents, …
Continue reading "Prenatal Search-and-Destroy Genetic Tests Often Wrong"
By Wesley J. Smith Just what the world didn’t need — a suicide machine that promises to make users die pleasurably in just 30 seconds. Ready or not, it’s here. The “Sarco Suicide Pod” has been approved for use in Switzerland, a country that already accommodates “suicide tourism,” that is, for-pay clinics that people attend …
Continue reading "We Are Becoming Pro-Suicide"
By Wesley J. Smith When assisted-suicide mongers promise strict guidelines to protect against abuse, rest assured, it’s nothing but a con. It won’t take long before these same advocates denigrate the very “protections” they promoted as “barriers” or “obstacles” to a good death. Assisted-suicide-movement camp followers in the media eagerly promote the new message without …
Continue reading "Assisted-Suicide Mendacity: Today’s ‘Strict Protections’ Become Tomorrow’s Unjust ‘Barriers’"
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 …
Continue reading "Why Bioethics Should “Fail”"
By Wesley J. Smith A high court in Austria ruled late last year that the rights to self-determination and a “dignified death” encompass the right to commit suicide and receive assistance. Now, the parliament has legalized prescribing poison to terminally ill and disabled people starting next year. From the Deutsche Welle story: The Assisted Suicide …
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By Wesley J. Smith These days, anti-humanism is as thick as molasses among the intelligentsia. That includes an ongoing conversation in bioethics whether — all things considered — human extinction would be a fine thing because of the suffering that never coming into existence would avoid. Example: A few months ago, Oxford professor Roger Crisp …
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By Wesley J. Smith Some time ago, the Australian ghoul and suicide promoter Philip Nitschke, invented a machine for use in making oneself dead. He calls it the “Sarco Suicide Pod,” a futuristic gizmo the suicidal person enters. Once the lid is closed, the despairing person answers a few questions and then pushes a button to …
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By Wesley J. Smith This time, it is explicitly open season on people with disabilities who ask to die. From the AP story: The new version, approved in a 138-84 vote with five abstentions, has a much fuller description. It refers to a “serious injury, definitive and amply disabling, which makes a person dependent on others or …
Continue reading "Portugal Parliament Approves Euthanasia of Disabled Patients"
By Wesley J. Smith When assisted-suicide mongers promise strict guidelines to protect against abuse, rest assured, it’s nothing but a con. It won’t take long before these same advocates denigrate the very “protections” they promoted as “barriers” or “obstacles” to a good death. Assisted-suicide-movement camp followers in the media eagerly promote the new message without a mention that …
Continue reading "Assisted-Suicide Mendacity: Today’s ‘Strict Protections’ Become Tomorrow’s Unjust ‘Barriers’"
By Wesley J. Smith Talk about efficiency. Some enterprising Canadian funeral homes are offering their, er, customers, the option of one-stop death and mortuary services, renting out a room in which to be killed and then quickly prepared for final disposition. From the CBC story (first brought to my attention by Bioedge): Wanting to meet …
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By Wesley J. Smith Coercion is becoming ubiquitous in medicine. Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who oppose morally contentions medical procedures are increasingly being forced to choose between remaining in their professions and violating their deepest-held religious beliefs. Take the new “Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill of 2021” just passed in Queensland, Australia. The law authorizes doctors …
Continue reading "Anti-Conscience Mandates Force Doctors to Violate Their Religious Beliefs"