palliative care

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 ›

^{Christopher Rufo
June 13, 2019
Economics}

An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis

_{Christopher Rufo
June 13, 2019
Economics}

By latest count, some 109,089 men and women are sleeping on the streets of major cities in California, Oregon, and Washington. The homelessness crisis in these cities has generated headlines and speculation about “root causes.” Progressive political activists allege that tech companies have inflated housing costs and forced middle-class people onto the streets. Declaring that “no two people living on Skid Row . . . ended up there for the same reasons,” Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, for his part, blames a housing shortage, stagnant wages, cuts to mental health services, domestic and sexual abuse, shortcomings in criminal justice, and a lack of resources for veterans. These factors may all have played a role, but the most pervasive cause of West Coast homelessness is clear: heroin, fentanyl, and synthetic opioids. 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 ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
June 4, 2008
Human Exceptionalism}

Assisted Suicide and the Corruption of Palliative Care

_{Wesley J. Smith
June 4, 2008
Human Exceptionalism}

For the past two decades, euthanasia/assisted-suicide ideologues have worked overtime to conflate palliative carethe medical alleviation of pain and other distressing symptoms of serious illnesswith intentionally ending the life of the patient. The movements first target was the hospice, a specialized form of care for the dying created forty years ago in the United Kingdom by the late, great medical Read More ›

Intravenous cannula placed in the hand of an elderly patient for palliative care of a terminal patient.

^{Wesley J. Smith
November 4, 1999
Human Exceptionalism}

Don’t Kill the Pain Relief Bill

_{Wesley J. Smith
November 4, 1999
Human Exceptionalism}

Last week, by a vote of 271-156, the House approved the Pain Relief Promotion Act, designed to promote effective medical treatment of pain while deterring the misuse of narcotics and other controlled substances for assisted suicide. The bill’s passage prompted an outpouring of hyperbole and misinformation from opponents. Here are the facts about the act: It would not outlaw assisted Read More ›