by Michael Cook
Euthanasia claimed its most famous victim last Saturday. At the age of 95, Belgian Nobel laureate Christian de Duve was killed with a lethal injection. He died in his home, surrounded by his four children. Read more…
An expert committee of lawyers, chaired by Maitre Jean-Pierre Ménard, was set up by the Quebec government to advise it how to implement Quebec Legislative Assembly committee report on “Dying with Dignity” (QLAC report), which advocates legalizing euthanasia. Read more…
I am an intensive care doctor in a Sydney hospital. I spend my days and nights amid flickering lights and beeping monitors in a small ward with desperately ill patients. Some of them have just been operated on. Some have just had a stroke or a heart attack. Some have just arrived after car accidents. Read more…
What’s wrong with this statement?: “It is wrong that the parents had to fight so hard against the boy’s own doctors and hospital to save his life.” Answer: It’s not a line from a science fiction novel. It’s real modern-day life. Wha…?
Look into the future if Obamacare remains. Texas has a futile care law permitting a hospital bioethics panel to refuse wanted life-sustaining treatment if they don’t think the patient’s life is worth the cost or has sufficient quality. It is like the old signs over restaurant doors, “We reserve the right to refuse service.” (I have warned against Futile Care Theory often, including here at NRO.) Read more…
by Michael Cook
There can be no more difficult case for dispassionate discussion than the fate of Tony Nicklinson, a totally paralysed British man who wants to end his life. Last week the UK High Court denied his request for euthanasia. Read more…
An interesting twist. Undoubtedly, this won’t be the last story of its kind.
by Michael Cook
Google “assisted suicide” on Google News and you can scroll through a number of current cases which have been described as “assisted suicide” or “mercy killing”. As a particularly sordid example of how assisted suicide can be abused, consider the case of Gerard Curran and Paul Stephen Bricker, two American sailors living in Virginia. The 45-year-old Curran was separated from his wife and drinking heavily. He wanted to commit suicide, but he also wanted to ensure that his family would receive benefits after his death. So he asked Bricker, who had served with him as a junior sailor on the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, to kill him. In 2009 the two men went to a park. Curran strangled himself with a yellow physical therapy band until he fainted. Then Bricker stabbed him in the chest. Read more…
by Michael Cook
The classic 60s family-friendly cowboy TV series Bonanza, about a patriarch and his three sons on a half a million acres in 1870s Nevada may not seem like a place to look for lessons about euthanasia. But this episode, which screened on November 17, 1963 is an example of how far society has changed. A friend of Little Joe confesses to him that he administered a mercy killing to his future father-in-law after a mining accident. Little Joe has misgivings, but is sympathetic. Then he talks to Dad — Ben Cartwright — who explains to him why no one ever has a right to take a life. Very nostalgic.
by Michael Cook
On election day in November, Massachusetts will also vote on a referendum on assisted suicide – or, as its supporters call it, assisted dying. On July 31 Boston Globe featured parallel statements by a leading advocate of the measure and a leading foe. Read more…
Let’s focus on Wisconsin here, as a microcosm of the morphing healthcare system that’s redefining health and care and prompting an effort to examine it all carefully.
The Wisconsin bishops released a statement warning people about the spreading use of Physician (or Provider) Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST). They did it in a carefully but clearly worded pastoral letter Upholding the Dignity of Human Life. Read more…
by Michael Cook
Euthanasia in the Netherlands is nothing much to worry about, according to The Lancet. The latest survey shows that the overall levels of euthanasia and assisted suicide are about the same now as they were in 2002, when euthanasia was legalised. A small increase since 2005 is just due to the fact that more people are requesting euthanasia. Read more…
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