Wesley J. Smith

Detroit Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson opines that Kevorkian was just a man ahead of his time. Imagine the “reality show” television potential, he writes, if Kevorkian were working today:How differently things might have turned out if the nation’s first shock doc had waited . . . . Continue Reading »

This Reuters sugar piece on Kevorkian leaves out some of the most pertinent parts of his story. Here are five other facts that would seem to be more relevant than Kevorkian teaching himself Japanese:1. The majority of his assisted suicides were not people with terminal illnesses, and indeed, five . . . . Continue Reading »

Dutch scientists are trying to create meat in the lab. If they succeed, the hope is that people can eat pork—and presumably other meats—without the need to raise and butcher food animals, which is seen as more humane and environmentally friendly. From the story:Under the process, . . . . Continue Reading »

This is my last planned installment on the release of Jack Kevorkian from prison. The article could have been called “Kevorkian in His Own Words,” for I present his motives for engaging in his assisted suicide campaign, as he stated them—the right to engage in human experimentation . . . . Continue Reading »

The nation’s leading hospice professional organization, the NHPCO, has reiterated its opposition to the legalization of assisted suicide. Good. Assisted suicide is directly contrary to the hospice philosophy. Indeed, as the statement notes, it constitutes (often unintentional) abandonment. For . . . . Continue Reading »

A lot can be made of a new Gallop Poll about assisted suicide and euthanasia. When asked if assisted suicide is morally acceptable, 48% say yes and 44% say no. That is very close to the AP poll I posted about the other day.Then Gallop asks a question which seems to me intended to heighten the . . . . Continue Reading »

As promised, here is the Weekly Standard article I co-authored with Rita Marker, which points up the similarities between Jack Kevorkian’s illegal assisted suicide campaign and the legal assisted suicide regimen currently regent in Oregon. Here are a few excerpts: In 1990, when Kevorkian began . . . . Continue Reading »

When I wrote the other day about the Dutch “reality” television show in which a terminally ill woman will interview “contestants” vying to receive her kidney for transplant, I assumed that the donation would be after she had died. Apparently not. According to this story, the . . . . Continue Reading »

USA Today has named Terri Schiavo one of the top 25 people who “moved us” in the last 25 years. Hmmm. I know her family would rather she hadn’t made such an impact, that instead, she were still alive and being cared for in the bosom of their love.It is undeniable though that Terri . . . . Continue Reading »

We often hear that more than 60% of Americans favor assisted suicide. I have never believed it because the polls that count—elections—mostly show narrow disapproval of legalization (except Michigan where an assisted suicide legalization bill lost 71-29% in 1998, hardly narrow, and . . . . Continue Reading »