assisted suicide

Yesterday, I posted about a Vermont bill that would allow nondoctors to prescribe death. I found out today that Oregon has similar legislation pending that would allow “providers” to lethally prescribe. SB 1003 specifies that “provider” can mean a licensed physician, a licensed physician assistant, or a licensed nurse practitioner. I wouldn’t trust a PA or NP to diagnose me with six months to live. Would you? That is not a putdown. These valuable medical professionals’ primary roles are to provide generalized care, monitor and manage chronic conditions, and provide wellness services. But they are not physicians. They receive less education and specialized training as compared with physician-certified specialists like cardiologists, oncologists, nephrologists, or neurologists. I suspect that the reason for expanding categories of eligible lethal Read More ›

Vermont has repeatedly expanded its assisted suicide law since it first passed. Nonresidents are allowed to receive lethal prescriptions, and assisted suicide can be prescribed via Zoom or Skype. Now, a bill has been filed that would allow nondoctor “clinicians” to prescribe death. From H.B. 75: This bill proposes to authorize naturopathic physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to participate in the processes established in Vermont’s patient choice at end-of-life laws. It would also allow naturopathic physicians to sign and issue do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and clinician orders for life-sustaining treatment. In other words, a suicidal patient would be able to access poison pills without ever seeing a doctor or having an in-person consultation or examination. What next? Pharmacists? Don’t laugh. Read More ›

Pro-assisted-suicide activists like to say the unethical act is legal in Montana. Strictly speaking, that isn’t true. Some years ago, a muddled Montana supreme court ruling refused to create a state constitutional right to assisted suicide as requested by activists because the Montana constitution’s legislative history made it clear that the court couldn’t. But wanting to legalize it anyway, the judges declared somehow that assisted suicide wasn’t against public policy of the state and that consent to such an act was a defense to a criminal charge.

Montana has been in that muddled legal state ever since, with attempts to either explicitly legalize or criminalize assisted suicide unable to get to the governor’s desk.

Now, the Montana senate has moved the anti-assisted-suicide agenda forward, passing a simple bill that would declare consent to assisted suicide unavailable as a defense by making assisted suicide contrary to Montana public policy. 

Previous studies have shown an association between states legalizing assisted suicide and increases in suicide rates for other suicides. Now, pro-euthanasia activists are touting a new study which claims no impact. But the study actually finds a significant impact in the raw numbers. From the study published in the American Journal of Bioethics: 927,929 Suicide deaths were represented in the study. Ten states and the District of Columbia had legalized MAID within the study period. In an univariable analysis, states that legalized MAID differed significantly from non-MAID states with respect to mean monthly suicide rate (non-MAID States: 1.46; MAID states: 1.78; p < 0.0001), as well as several covariates. Oh. But wait, adjustments were made: We constructed geographically-weighted regression models controlling for annualized state-level sociodemographic factors, such Read More ›

Why do you oppose euthanasia, Wesley? If people want to die, we should help them die. No. And here’s an individual example explaining just one reason why. A deeply depressed woman was about to be lethally injected in the Netherlands — but changed her mind just in the nick of time. From the New York Post story: Romy, 22, who suffered from clinical depression, eating disorders, and anorexia due to childhood abuse, made the heartbreaking decision to end her life in accordance with legislation in the Netherlands, which allows for euthanasia under certain circumstances. She decided not to go ahead with it at the very last moment. After turning 18, Romy campaigned for four years for her right to die via voluntary assisted dying Read More ›

Wesley J. Smith was on EpochTV’s American Thought Leaders this week in an episode dedicated to exploring the history and dangers of the assisted suicide movement. From EpochTV: “When a country or a state legalizes assisted suicide or euthanasia, it can no longer call itself anti-suicide, because it specifically approves some suicides. … It’s a very dangerous movement that is normalizing this kind of approach to dying as opposed to natural death.” In this episode, I sit down with Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer, public speaker, award-winning author, and chair of … Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. “We’re seeing in Canada also the beginning of a situation where patients who have a tough time getting an oncologist because of Read More ›

The great anti-euthanasia warrior, Rita Marker, has died at 83 after a long illness. Rita was in Europe in the mid 1980s and, out of curiosity, attended an international right-to-die convention. She was so alarmed by what she heard, she and her late husband and soulmate Mike Marker, formed the nonprofit International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force (later renamed the Patients Rights Council). Along with a loyal staff, Rita began decades of work pushing against that dark agenda. Not every great public-policy activist becomes a household name. Rita wasn’t interested in notoriety or fame. Effectiveness was her lodestar, that and personal sacrifice. For as long as she was physically able, she gave all she had to the cause. Rita had stage fright, Read More ›

Whether to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia is one of the most culturally contentious — and important — public policy debates of our time. Supporters of legalization call it a compassionate “last resort” means of preventing unnecessary suffering and promoting autonomy. Opponents see the intentional ending of the lives of the ill as a profound abandonment and a path to Read More ›