Assisted Suicide Stereotype Is Target of Wesley Smith’s “Forced Exit”

Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder (Revised)By Wesley J. Smith
Spence Publishing, 2003

Discovery Institute is proud to announce that Spence Publishing has released a revised and updated version of a popular book by Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith.

Smith, a lawyer and author who regularly writes about assisted suicide and other bioethical issues, describes the mentality and methods of the assisted-suicide movement in Forced Exit, described as “compassionate” and “courageous” by the Boston Globe.

The assisted suicide movement has built public support through many deceptive means. They claim that assisted suicide should be legal but restricted as a “last resort,” for the terminally ill and those in constant pain. However, Smith shows that assisted suicide has been used on those who are not terminally ill, and in many cases for patients whose pain can be effectively reduced or eliminated through proper treatment – if they were informed of the option. A growing number of doctors subscribe to “futile-care theory,” which states that physicians have the duty to refuse treatment for those they consider it would be “futile” to treat. Some hospitals are quietly instituting futile-care protocols, and at least one HMO has asked if its doctors would be willing to assist the suicides of plan members who were not their own patients.

The legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide would, in short, make the powerless – the disabled, the critically ill, the indigent, the elderly – even weaker. In an era of fraying social ties, managed health care and family dysfunction, euthanasia could become the “treatment” of choice for those who require long-term care: people with cancer, AIDS, and other catastrophic diseases. Smith documents the abuses that are already occuring in the American medical system – following cues from our European neighbors.

This revised version has been updated to cover the changing tactics and fortunes of the assisted suicide movement over the past five years.

Praise for Forced Exit (first edition):

“In this compassionate, courageous work, Wesley Smith proposes turning toward our dying, making the hard choice of staying in connection to the end.” – Boston Globe

“Forced Exit argues against legally assisted suicide in so many compelling ways. It should drive the terms of the debate on this highly charged controversy.” – Ralph Nader

“Smith succeeds in warning that … America has given little thought to what must be done to make sure that assisted suicide remains an option of last, not first, resort.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

“Smith has done us all a great service with this important primer.” – C. Everett Koop