Category: Assisted Suicide

By Bridget Sielicki  As the call to make assisted suicide legal in the United Kingdom gains popularity, one advocate is publicly making the claim that assisted death isn’t the same as suicide. In a recent opinion piece for The Mirror, Marjorie Wallace claims, “Shortening life and shortening death isn’t the same and a clear distinction must be made …

Research shows that the experience of losing a parent through suicide is a risk factor for children. How about VAD? By Michael Cook Does voluntary assisted dying (VAD) – or euthanasia and assisted suicide – have a negative impact upon other people? It’s rare for this question to be raised in debates. If it is, supporters …

By Michael Cook As a reflection of the influence of classical liberal thought upon current affairs, the British “newspaper”, The Economist, has no peer. Its tightly written leaders (editorials) and backgrounders are extremely influential. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, is said to have remarked: “I used to think. Now, I just read The Economist.” So its stand …

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 …

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition David Rose, writing for the Daily Mail UK, published an article on October 21 titled “Why an ‘assisted death is almost certainly not what you think it is.” Stories about how assisted suicide deaths actually occur are rarely published.  Recently researcher Dr. Joel Zivot has challenged how …

Very seldom do stories about the last moments of people who chose assisted dying emerge in the media. When they do, it is normally about a grieving but serene family around the bed of a loved one who takes a last, lethal drink, falls gently asleep, and dies quickly. However, a Colorado widow told the Denver …

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Since the inception of the first US assisted suicide law in the state of Oregon, the assisted suicide lobby has been trying to extend assisted suicide to all 50 US states.  Last year I wrote about the attempt by the assisted suicide lobby to use Covid 19 …

Editor’s note. The following letter to the editor was published by the Oregonian on October 31. By Dr. Kenneth Stevens The Oct. 17 article “Why more Oregonians took their lives through Death with Dignity in 2020 than any other year” provided valuable information. The Oregon Health Authority data shows an exponential increase in the number of Death with Dignity …

By Michael Cook The marketing strategy of right-to-die organisations has not changed much over the past 150 years. In 1872 a British writer, Samuel D. Williams, wrote a book advocating the use of the novel anaesthetic chloroform to give patients “a quick and painless death”. In 1931 the British eugenicist Dr Killick Millard proposed legalisation of …

By Michael Cook Respect for autonomy, even more than fear of pain, is the fundamental reason why the argument for “assisted dying” has been so powerful. But will a decision to deliberately choose death ever be fully autonomous? In an impressive article in Psychiatric Times, two psychiatrists, Ronald Pies and Cynthia Geppert, make a persuasive case …

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Last July the NL Times reported that a 28 year old man known as “Alex S” was charged with assisting the suicides of at least 6 people with a suicide powder. The NL Times reported yesterday that “Alex S” is now facing charges in at least 15 …

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition In December 2020, the Austrian Constitutional court decided that the law preventing assisted suicide was unconstitutional because it violated a person’s right to self-determination. The Austrian assisted suicide bill seems very similar to other assisted suicide legislation other than it contains a longer waiting period. However, according …