Wesley J. Smith

Methinks A.B. 374, the bill to legalize assisted suicide in California, may be in some trouble. The authors have—sort of—amended the bill to require a three months left to live rather than a six months left to live standard, before a lethal prescription can be written in the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Swiss suicide rate is apparently quite high and a matter of great concern. The Swiss have vowed to fight it, but they have a problem: Opposing “suicide” while legally permitting assisted suicide sends a decidedly mixed message that would seem to make prevention advocacy less . . . . Continue Reading »

The Dutch continue to stun with their fall off a vertical bioethical cliff: In this installment, a television show will soon air in which three ill contestants vie for the right to the kidney of a terminally ill woman. From the story in the UK’s Guardian:In the show, due to be broadcast on . . . . Continue Reading »

I find myself feeling ambivalent about this story: Permission has been granted to therapeutically experiment on trauma victims and people whose hearts suddenly stopped beating, toward the end of improving care in such medical emergencies. In the past, I have opposed using unconscious and dying . . . . Continue Reading »

There are some who claim that there is little connection between Jack Kevorkian and most euthanasia/assisted suicide advocates. Don’t you believe it. Kevorkian merely had the temerity to actually do what most believe should be allowed to be done.As evidence, here are relevant excerpts from a . . . . Continue Reading »

On my way home from a speaking gig in Edmonton, Canada, I came across this long article in the Globe and Mail, byline Carolyn Abraham, that just got my blood boiling. The story concerns families who suffer a miscarriage and choose to bury their babies rather than having them disposed as mere medical . . . . Continue Reading »

Our media love the outlaw, as demonstrated in this “Kevorkian time line” that omits information about his victims. They are the truly forgotten ones in this travesty of egotism and sensationalism.Along the Kevorkian front, Rita Marker and I have a piece comparing Kevorkianism and . . . . Continue Reading »

There is a protest in Hartford about a teaching hospital educating their surgical students by having them work on live, anesthetized pigs, who have been injured to mimic gun shot and knife wounds, etc. Animal rights activists are in high dudgeon, calling it cruel and demanding that the students use . . . . Continue Reading »

I am not happy: But my ire was raised before the ultimate failure of the bill to outlaw futile care theory in Texas. The “good” bill, which would have required hospitals to maintain treatment pending a transfer to another hospital would have breezed to passage, and in the process given a . . . . Continue Reading »

Interfering with the cold, pitiless, purposelessness of natural selection, the exceptional species continues to strive mightily to save two apparently sick whales lost in the Sacramento River, (who may have been hit by a boat propeller). The effort has made newspapers throughout the country and in . . . . Continue Reading »