Via Wesley Smith: Dueling headlines in this Bay area newspaper perfectly illustrate our suicidal split personality. Prevention for some, facilitation for others. We can’t have it both ways, folks. No, really. We can’t. It turns out assisted suicide actually increases other suicides.
Me Before You and the Slow Suicide of the West
Sometimes movie spoilers are a welcome thing. Several months ago I saw a trailer for the movie Me Before You and got a little excited. A modern romance featuring a disabled main character. It looked so positive and promising. I should have known better. Apparently Me Before You, which hits theaters next weekend, was a novel first and many disability … Read More
Audio: Canada and the ‘Slippery Slope’ of Legal Assisted Suicide
St. Gianna, patron saint of physicians, pray for us! This morning I was on the Mike Allen Show discussing Canada’s assisted suicide legislation and the real, documented slippery slope of making death acceptable “treatment” for pain and suffering. (I start about 15 minutes in.) It wasn’t my finest performance, especially toward the end. And as always, we don’t always get … Read More
Dear Doc: Please Don’t Kill Me
In anticipation of Canada passing radical new assisted suicide legislation, my friend Mark Pickup has written a letter to his physician instructing him to never allow or cause him to be euthanized — even if he asks for it: Dear Dr. __: I can hardly bring myself to write these words but a dark reality in Canada requires it. I … Read More
The Deadly Fruit of Brittany Maynard’s “Private” Choice
29 year old Brittany Maynard made headlines last year for announcing her decision to end her life with doctor-prescribed suicide after being diagnosed with brain cancer. A Californian, she was, in her own words, “forced” to move to Oregon to exercise her “right to die” because of California’s ban on assisted suicide. At the time, critics of death-as-medicine were rebuked … Read More
BioBytes
• A survey recently conducted by the Canada’s Society of Palliative Care Physicians (CSPCP) reveals that “Most palliative physicians want no role in assisted death.” BioEdge has more. Good! Now that assisted suicide has been forced upon them by the CA Supreme Court, we need doctors like this to stand up and take back medicine! • Designer Babies: Human cloning … Read More
Audio: Three-Parent IVF and Euthanasia Updates
I was on The Mike Allen Show early this morning to talk about the troubling cultural embrace of 3-parent IVF and euthanasia http://www.reflectionsofaparalytic.com/audio/Mike-Allen-show-02-18-2015.m4a (Can’t see the player? Direct link to the episode here.) I didn’t get a chance to mention it on the show, but I encourage you all to sign this petition to stop UK proposals for germline genetic … Read More
Calling on Doctors to Take Back Medicine
Last week Canada’s highest court struck down the Canadian law protecting against assisting suicide. Unlike doctor-prescribed suicide laws here in the states (specifically, Oregon, Washington and Vermont) that are theoretically limited to those with terminal illness, the Canadian ruling allows anyone who “has a grievous and irremediable medical condition (including an illness, disease or disability) that causes enduring suffering that … Read More
Wesley Smith’s 2015 Bioethics Predictions
As he does every year, the CBC’s resident psychic, Wesley Smith, takes a look into his crystal ball (or whatever) and tells us what he sees happening in the world of bioethics in the coming year: I believed last year—and still do—that the Canadian Supreme Court will declare a constitutional right to assisted suicide. The case was argued last year … Read More
Facing Death With Dignity
Liz — living with advanced, incurable kidney cancer wants you to know: “The moment we label suicide an act with dignity, we’ve implied that people like me are undignified for not ending our lives, or worse, we’re a costly burden for society. What a lonely, uncharitable and fake world we live in if we think it’s somehow undignified to let people … Read More