Wesley J. Smith

Stories like this continue to mount in the UK, and are a warning to us of the growing utilitarian, quality of life/cost-benefit bent in health care.  A stroke patient, it is charged, was almost neglected to death—if not worse—at a UK hospital.  From the story:John MacGillivray, . . . . Continue Reading »

An abridged version of a much longer interview I gave to the Italian paper Avvenire about the Eluana Englaro and Terri Schiavo cases appeared the other day.  (Hit this link for the English translation and commentary about the interview by Bruce Chapman, head of the Discovery Institute.) . . . . Continue Reading »

The New York Times made news—or rather manufactured it—by publishing a public opinion poll that seems to show Americans overwhelmingly supporting a single payer or similar health care funding system.  The only problem is, those questioned voted by nearly 2 to 1 for Obama over . . . . Continue Reading »

Why am I not surprised?A few days ago, I reported recently here at SHS, about a Pew Poll that showed fewer than 50% wanting a wholesale overhaul of our health care system, far less than in 1993. A few days ago, imagine my surprise when the New York Times came out with a completely different series . . . . Continue Reading »

Health care rationing is a polite name for invidious medical discrimination against the weak and vulnerable. The Obama Administration seems to be pushing the USA toward rationing by hinting that it will support establishing a utilitarian bioethics oversite board that would determine the levels of . . . . Continue Reading »

A UK bioethicist named Daniel K. Sokol, who writes nary a word in opposition to Futile Care Theory, aka medical futility (meaning, I suspect, he is a futilitarian), has nonetheless written a valuable informative essay in the British Medical Journal (no link, 13 JUNE 2009 | Volume 338) called . . . . Continue Reading »

This is a warning of what could befall the USA if we allow centralized bioethical planning to become part of health care reform.  In the UK, utilitarian bioethicists control who gets—and who is denied—treatment via the Orwellian named organization NICE (National Institute for Health . . . . Continue Reading »

Assisted suicide is many things; abandonment, lethal, dangerous, discriminatory—but to its supporters, merciful and respectful of individual autonomy.  But it is not medicine.  Everyone knows this, of course. But to gain public respectability and thereby gain legalization, advocates . . . . Continue Reading »

Assisted suicide advocates can be so disingenuous. A woman in the UK with multiple sclerosis committed suicide the Derek Humphry way—and that death is being used by assisted suicide advocates to promote legalization of assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Also notice how the argument is . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s about time: Other than the disability rights movement and Nat Hentoff, it seems to me that the Left has been not only supine in the face of the oncoming “duty to die,” but its enablers.  Maybe the worm is beginning to turn. Mickey Kaus at Slate believes—silly . . . . Continue Reading »