The shortage of organs for transplantation is threatening to unleash immoral and unethical remedies. A terrible story out of Belgium illustrates the peril. Read More ›
Today is my 76th birthday," the letter began. "Unassisted and by my own free will, I have chosen to take my final passage." Suicide. My friend Frances died in a cold, impersonal hotel room after taking an overdose of sleeping pills, with a plastic bag tied over her head suffocating the life out of her body. Read More ›
The court-ordered death of Terri Schiavo was an ominous cultural tipping point. The legal case began when Terri’s husband Michael Schiavo applied to remove the feeding tube from his profoundly cognitively disabled wife so that she would die by dehydration. When Terri’s parents Bob and Mary Schindler, joined by her siblings Bobby and Suzanne, fought the plan in court, profoundly important cultural and legal battle lines were drawn that were destined to change the country. Read More ›
Some lines should never be crossed. Allowing doctors to kill patients during organ harvesting wouldn’t only be an acute threat to the sanctity of life, but I can think of no better way to sow mistrust in our health care system generally—and the lifesaving field of organ transplant medicine specifically. Read More ›
I have often argued that, as a matter of logic and intuition, the widespread legalization of assisted suicide will increase both the rate of assisted suicides and the rate of unassisted suicides. Read More ›
Here’s the advocacy scam: “Death with dignity” activists push suicide facilitation for some people—but still claim to oppose suicide per se because they call doctor-prescribed death by the euphemism, “medical aid in dying” (MAID). Read More ›