John Kelly, a disability rights activist with Second Thoughts Massachusetts, has an article in the Newark (New Jersey) Star Ledger that does a masterful job of cutting through the sentimentality and the shallow idea of compassion behind the selling of assisted suicide laws. Sadly, some individuals have bought the idea that living until their natural deaths will hold nothing … [Read more...] about Looking Beyond Shallow “Compassion” Reveals the Real Cruelty of Legal Assisted Suicide
Slippery Slope
The Slippery Slope from Michael Landon to Brittany Maynard
Think there isn’t a slippery slope? We are in the first stages of a cultural move toward acceptance of euthanasia, driven by the slick PR efforts of Compassion and Choices and others of their ilk. This piece by Wesley Smith on First Things deftly summarizes how attitudes have changed in just 20 … [Read more...] about The Slippery Slope from Michael Landon to Brittany Maynard
To Brittany Maynard: You Can Still Escape the “Movement” to Spread Assisted Suicide and Find Meaning in Helping Others Escape Too
Radio and tv networks and popular print media are saturated today with the news that Brittany Maynard, a twenty-nine year old California woman with a brain tumor that is usually fatal, having moved to Oregon because that state has legalized assisted suicide, plans to die on November 1, approximately six months after receiving a prognosis giving her that amount of time to … [Read more...] about To Brittany Maynard: You Can Still Escape the “Movement” to Spread Assisted Suicide and Find Meaning in Helping Others Escape Too
No Capital Punishment Belgium to Euthanize, Not Treat, Prisoner
This leaves us nearly speechless. Here in the US, where many states execute murderers by lethal injection, there have been incidences in which the drugs have failed, causing great suffering and a prolonged death. Many in the US are calling for an end to executions using drugs that do not always work in the ways they were intended to. Belgium has no capital punishment, … [Read more...] about No Capital Punishment Belgium to Euthanize, Not Treat, Prisoner
Suicide by any other name…
Again today, my Facebook feed is filled with statements of mourning about yet another reported suicide of a well known person. People who knew Robin Williams only by his public persona are grieved by his untimely death, allegedly at his own hands. We can only imagine the heartbreak being experienced by his friends and family. And again today, I ask: what is the distinction … [Read more...] about Suicide by any other name…