By Wesley J. Smith In my first anti-euthanasia column, published in Newsweek in 1993, I warned that eventually medicalized killing/suicide would be conjoined with organ harvesting “as a plum to society.” “Slippery slope argument!” my detractors yelled at me. “Alarmist!” It will never happen!” You get the drift. Of course, it did happen. In Belgium …
Continue reading "Canada Conjoining Euthanasia/Organ Donation"By Michael Cook Several Dutch and Belgian doctors have proposed legal reforms to increase the popularity of combining euthanasia and organ donation in the Netherlands and Belgium. Writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, they report valuable unpublished information about the prevalence of the procedure. So far, it has been performed only about 40 times …
Continue reading "Dutch and Belgian doctors propose changes to increase the popularity of combining euthanasia and organ donation"By Wesley J. Smith A just published article in the Journal of Medical Ethics argues for allowing killing by organ removal as a form of euthanasia and organ donation. The authors mention that Belgium has “presumed consent” for organ donation. From the piece: When a patient is determined dead on the basis of either circulatory …
Continue reading "Belgium Combines Organ Donation Presumed Consent, Euthanasia"By Dave Andrusko On Monday we posted a story about a glimmer of light in the horrific weekend in Kalamazoo, Michigan in which a Uber driver stands accused of murdering six people. A number of stories, which NRL News Today quoted accurately, said that 14-year-old Abigail Kopf had been shot Saturday in a Kalamazoo Cracker …
Continue reading "Hospital says teenager shot in murder spree was not declared brain dead"By Wesley J. Smith This won’t happen, but I don’t know how euthanasia supporters could oppose the request. A murderer is suffering from imprisonment. He wants to die so his organs can be used to save his parents’ lives. From the WKRN story: An inmate housed at the Turney Center in Hickman County is asking …
Continue reading "Euthanize Prisoner to Use Organs for Parents?"By Wesley J. Smith I warned this would happen back in my first anti-assisted suicide article–Newsweek, June 28, 1993–in which I wrote: Of greater concern to me is the moral trickledown effect that could result should society ever come to agree with Frances [to legalize assisted suicide]. Life is action and reaction, the proverbial …
Continue reading "Hey Kids: Let’s Organ-Harvest the Suicidal!"By Wesley J. Smith So, this is where euthanasia leads, and how its values spread like a virus. Belgium permits euthanasia to be combined with organ harvesting. That odious couplng has now apparently spread to the Netherlands, where Dickey Ringeling, age 61, came down with a serious case of MS. Rather than live with …
Continue reading "MS Patient “Hero” for Euthanasia/Organ Harvest"By Wesley J. Smith To donate vital organs, a donor must be dead. This is known as the “dead donor rule, I have been warning that utilitarian bioethicists and transplant medical professionals want to shatter the DDR to permit killing living, living profoundly cognitively disabled patients for their organs. Now, we see what appears …
Continue reading "Bioethics Push Poll to Allow Killing for Organs"By Wesley J. Smith Pick your cliche: Give them an inch and they will take a mile; in for a penny in for a pound, etc. In bioethics, there is never a permanent boundary beyond which the utilitarian impulse will not take them. Now, advocacy is beginning to ask conscious patients who want to …
Continue reading "Asking Awake ICU Patients to Harvest Organs"By Wesley J. Smith The attacks on the dead donor rule–which requires death as a precondition of donating vital organs–are continuing in the world’s most prestigious medical and bioethical journals. Take the New England Journal of Medicine, which has just published opposing articles about the issue. The pro-killing for organs article–by Robert D. Truog, M.D., …
Continue reading "Legalize Murder for Organs?"By Paul Russell Editor’s note. While my family and I are on vacation, we are running some of our favorite NRL News Today stories from the last four months, entries from our “Roe at 40″ series, and an occasional update. Paul Russell heads “HOPE,” an Australian organization which battles euthanasia and assisted suicide. A Huffington …
Continue reading "Altruistic assisted suicide – surely you can’t be serious?"By Wesley J. Smith I have been warning against coupling assisted suicide with organ harvesting since 1993, when I wrote my first anti-assisted suicide column in Newsweek. From, “The Whispers of Strangers:” Life is action and reaction, the proverbial pebble thrown into the pond. We don’t get to the Brave New World in one giant …
Continue reading "Disabled Woman Wants Suicide/Organ Donation"