The opioid crisis is tragically real and requires a concerted national commitment to remediation policies such as those recommended by the President’s Commission. In such a crisis, we cannot warn people not to abuse these powerful drugs, while at the same time allowing doctors intentionally to prescribe overdoses. Combating opioid abuse must apply to all abuses — including the use of these pain-killing drugs in suicide.
Read More ›Pope John Paul II once famously described Western society as a “culture of death.” But what does that term mean? It refers to a civilization that endorses lethal omissions and even outright killing by doctors to alleviate suffering or resolve life crises. “Culture of death” is most often applied in the context of euthanasia, assisted suicide, and abortion. A few decades ago, Read More ›
Doctors in the United States cannot be forced to perform abortions or assist suicides. But that may soon change. Bioethicists and other medical elites have launched a frontal assault against doctors seeking to practice their professions under the values established by the Hippocratic Oath. The campaign’s goal? To force doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and others in the health field who hold Read More ›
There was a day in the not-too-distant past when physicians were respected, even revered, as learned professionals. We understood that doctors followed a “higher calling.” Indeed, physicians were expected to adhere to a code of conduct—epitomized by the Hippocratic Oath’s venerable injunction, “do no harm.” Times have changed. The old hierarchies eroded and professional standards evolved accordingly. Some of this has obviously been Read More ›
As an anti-euthanasia activist since 1993, I am used to opponents stretching the truth. True to form, Barbara Coombs Lee, the head of Compassion & Choices, claimed I advocate making assisted suicide “a federal crime.” No, I don’t. I support a prohibition on using federally controlled substances such as opioids from being prescribed for assisted suicide — a different approach altogether Read More ›
Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer popularized “speciesism,” a derogatory term for the belief that it is acceptable to treat humans differently from animals based solely on species membership. Singer identified this idea as a form of discrimination, as odious as racism and sexism. Speciesism is universally condemned within the animal rights movement (as distinguished from animal welfare advocacy), which holds, in Read More ›
The late, great Nat Hentoff befriended me during the 1990s, I don’t remember exactly when. Having read my work against euthanasia, he reached out to me for an interview for one of his columns. That initial professional interaction bloomed into a good friendship, mostly conducted over the phone, but also in person over meals whenever I was able to get Read More ›
Assisted suicide proponents always promise that facilitated death will be offered solely and strictly to the mentally competent. But once a society accepts the premise of euthanasia—that it is acceptable to eliminate suffering by eliminating the sufferer—there is no way to restrict the putative “right to die” to the mentally healthy. Mental illness often causes greater anguish than any physical disease Read More ›
Should anyone outside the military be forced to kill? Most people would say no. But with the ubiquitous availability of abortion—and the push to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia—doctors may soon find themselves required to take lives or risk being booted from the medical profession. Let’s call this threat “medical martyrdom.” Laws today generally protect doctors from being conscripted into Read More ›
Writing at First Things, Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith discusses the alarming first case of child euthanasia in Belgium. Belgium is the only country to have legalized physician-assisted suicide for children of any age. Read more from Wesley J. Smith at First Things.