euthanasia | Page 5 | Discovery Institute

desperate man in silhouette sitting on the bed with hands on head

^{Wesley J. Smith
October 1, 2020
Human Exceptionalism}

Autonomy or Abandoning the Mentally Ill?

_{Wesley J. Smith
October 1, 2020
Human Exceptionalism}

A U.K. woman with anorexia is in danger of starving to death and courts there will not allow force-feeding to save her life because she has decision-making capacity. Read More ›

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July 6, 2020
Human Exceptionalism}

The Deadly “Quality of Life” Ethic

_{Wesley J. Smith
July 6, 2020
Human Exceptionalism}

Something evil happened recently in Austin. Michael Hickson, a forty-six-year-old African-American man with quadriplegia and a serious brain injury, was refused treatment at St. David’s Hospital South Austin while ill with COVID-19. Read More ›

Medical syringe in the doctor's hands on the patient's in room h

^{Wesley J. Smith
April 17, 2020
Human Exceptionalism}

The Jack Kevorkian Plague

_{Wesley J. Smith
April 17, 2020
Human Exceptionalism}

Young female hands hugging old woman, closeup

^{Wesley J. Smith
September 27, 2019
Human Exceptionalism}

Congress Should Pass the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 27, 2019
Human Exceptionalism}

Unfortunately, the bill is opposed by some opponents of assisted suicide, people who are my friends and whom I respect for their commitment to defending the practice of ethical medicine. This makes no sense to me. The more confidence people have that their loved ones will be cared for properly through palliative and hospice techniques — as my mother was — the less they are likely to turn in desperation to support for assisted suicide. Indeed, euthanasia advocates engage in ubiquitous fearmongering to convince people that their binary choice is allowing assisted suicide or abandoning their loved ones to a potentially agonizing death. In this sense, public support for legalizing assisted suicide can be interpreted as a declaration of no confidence in the ability of doctors to properly care for people. Read More ›

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April 22, 2019
Human Exceptionalism}

Wesley J. Smith Testifies Before Texas State Senate Against Futile Care

_{Discovery Institute
April 22, 2019
Human Exceptionalism}

Discovery Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith appeared before the Texas State Senate Committee on Health and Human Services to advocate in favor of SB2089. The purpose of the bill is to improve Texas’s medical futility provisions and to make end of life healthcare disputes between patients, providers, and their families cooperative rather coercive, which Smith currently believes to be the Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
December 11, 2018
Human Exceptionalism}

Euthanasia Zealots Push Starvation as ‘Death with Dignity’

_{Wesley J. Smith
December 11, 2018
Human Exceptionalism}

It’s getting very dark in euthanasia-land. Not content with legalizing assisted suicide for the terminally ill in six states plus the District of Columbia — with Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Colombia allowing lethal jab euthanasia — and unsatiated with Switzerland’s suicide clinics to which people from around the world attend — the so-called “death with dignity” movement now is pushing self-starvation as a splendid way to die. Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
October 23, 2018
Human Exceptionalism}

Transhumanist Bill of Wrongs

_{Wesley J. Smith
October 23, 2018
Human Exceptionalism}

Transhumanists have seen the future and it is authoritarian. More specifically, it is both authoritarian and anti-human. To make matters even worse, transhumanism would coercively bankrupt the world economy. Beyond that, it’s a pipe dream that threatens venerable Western values. What’s not to like? For those who may not know, transhumanism is an increasingly influential futuristic social movement that flowed Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
September 17, 2018
Human Exceptionalism}

A Gruesome Plan

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 17, 2018
Human Exceptionalism}

The Hippocratic Oath is dead. “Do no harm” medicine is fast becoming extinct. Contemporary health care is increasingly under the sway of a utilitarian bioethics that makes the elimination of suffering the prime directive—to the detriment of traditional standards of medical morality that deem all human life equally worthy of care and protection. The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has been …

^{Wesley J. Smith
March 16, 2018
Human Exceptionalism}

Behind the Curtain of Assisted Suicide Advocacy

_{Wesley J. Smith
March 16, 2018
Human Exceptionalism}

The United States assisted suicide movement claims that it wants only a limited “reform” of law and medical ethics, restricting what it euphemistically calls “aid in dying” to competent adults with terminal illnesses for whom nothing else can be done to alleviate their suffering. But this claim isn’t true. Currently, no law permitting doctors to write lethal prescriptions mandates any Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
March 2, 2018
Human Exceptionalism}

Obliged to Kill

_{Wesley J. Smith
March 2, 2018
Human Exceptionalism}

A court in Ontario, Canada, has ruled that a patient’s desire to be euthanized trumps a doctor’s conscientious objection. Doctors there now face the cruel choice between complicity in what they consider a grievous wrong—killing a sick or disabled patient—and the very real prospect of legal or professional sanction. A little background: In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada conjured Read More ›