The Road to Condoning Cannibalism

by Justin Lee

According to the logic of Germany's highest court, the imprisonment of Armin Meiwes for the consensual killing of Bernd-Jürgen Brandes is a grave injustice.  Continue Reading »

11 Mar 2020

Death With Aesthetics

by Wesley J. Smith

We don’t speak plainly in public discourse anymore. Rather, we equivocate and deploy euphemisms to sanitize our debates. Take the passing of Brittany Maynard by her own hand, which the media has repeatedly characterized as an act of “dignity.” To be sure, Maynard died with human dignity—but not because she committed suicide. Human dignity is intrinsic. Indeed, to accept the premise of suicide as death with dignity says—or at least strongly implies—that patients who expire naturally die with indignity. Continue Reading »

14 Nov 2014

Of Michael Landon and Brittany Maynard

by Wesley J. Smith

Michael Landon, the hugely popular television star of Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, and Highway to Heaven, died in 1991 at age fifty-four. Landon’s last act—if you will—was widely hailed as his best: He publicly announced his diagnosis with terminal pancreatic cancer, appeared on the Tonight Show to openly discuss his pending death with Johnny Carson (almost unprecedented back then), and gave several interviews announcing his determination to hang on until the end. He told Life, “If I’m gonna die, death’s gonna have to do a lot of fighting to get me.” Continue Reading »

17 Oct 2014

More Evidence of Radical Scope of Assisted Suicide Death Agenda

by Wesley J. Smith

One of the myths about the assisted suicide movement is that it “only” wants “terminally ill people for whom nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering” to have a “right to die with dignity.” That is a false premise, but beside that point, it is a blatant . . . . Continue Reading »

28 May 2009

More

by Wesley J. Smith

I was first drawn into fighting assisted suicide when a depressed elderly friend committed suicide under the influence of Hemlock Society literature. Not only had the group’s suicide-porn given Frances moral permission to kill herself, but they had taught her precisely how to do it.These kinds . . . . Continue Reading »

26 May 2009

Honest Nitschke

by Wesley J. Smith

Philip Nitschke, as I have repeatedly written, believes essentially in death on demand. He says so again in the wake of the suicide of woman he “counseled:”“Nitschke insisted that healthy people of sound mind, who were mature enough, should have the right to take their own lives if . . . . Continue Reading »

7 Feb 2008

"The Assisted Suicide Movement Sheds Its Fig Leaf"

by Wesley J. Smith

Last week I posted here at SHS about an opinion column in the Hastings Center Report urging that assisted suicide be made available to some mentally ill people. I expound on that issue in greater length and detail in this piece published today in the Daily Standard. I conclude:With the truth now . . . . Continue Reading »

5 Jul 2007