assisted suicide

I have always believed that liberals should be leading opponents of assisted suicide. After all, two of the core tenets of liberalism are (supposed to be) protecting vulnerable people from exploitation and promoting equality among all people. But other than disability-rights activists, most liberals tend to support legalization based on “choice.” Mega author J.K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame, is definitely a political liberal. Indeed, her activism pushing against gender ideology is founded in protecting children and securing women’s private spaces. Now, with legalization having passed the U.K. House of Commons and the bill now being debated in the House of Lords, she has come out in opposition to state-sanctioned assisted suicide. From The Lion story: Author J.K. Rowling has Read More ›

I understand that people are terrified of dementia. Believe me, I get it. My mother died of Alzheimer’s. But I can’t wrap my head around the fact that advocacy for killing/suicide as the answer to the difficulties caused by the condition is becoming ubiquitous. Noted bioethicist and lawyer Thaddeus Mason Pope has written an essay, to be published in an edited volume, on this very issue. It lists eleven ways people can “avoid late-stage dementia,” and almost all involve intentionally ending life. Remember when we were told that advance medical directives are the key to not receiving life-extending treatment one does not want? They are, but that’s not good enough for Pope, because it doesn’t guarantee death: This strategy is Read More ›

ALS is a catastrophic terminal disease that, within a few years of diagnosis (the physicist Stephen Hawking was an exception), eventually causes total paralysis. It is also a tragic condition that euthanasia/assisted suicide activists zealously wield to justify killing as an acceptable answer to suffering.

Now, the understandable fear of ALS is being deployed by academic advocates as a means of breaking the (U.S.) requirement for a six-month terminal diagnosis and self-administration in assisted suicide.

In jurisdictions where MAiD [the euphemism for assisted suicide that seeks to turn life-ending it into a medical “treatment”]is legally available, such laws are intended to support patient autonomy and alleviate suffering. However, for patients with ALS, the clinical reality of progressive paralysis combined with legal requirements for self-administration of lethal medication creates a cruel dilemma. Approximately one-third of affected individuals express interest in MAiD if their suffering becomes intolerable [12], yet current laws require that it be initiated while patients retain the physical ability to self-administer the prescribed medication.

However, patients are not legally eligible to access MAiD until it is determined they have a life expectancy of six months or less. This creates a narrow and clinically unrealistic window where waiting until they meet legal eligibility may mean they are no longer physically capable of completing the required act, regardless of prognosis, suffering, or intent.

People sometimes tell me that nothing can be more extreme than the transgender craze. I disagree. The next step is already in sight, what is sometimes called “transableism.” Transableism is an advocacy term for a mental illness known as Body Identity Integrity Disorder (BIID). People with the condition anguish that they were born with body parts or capacities that they should not have. This may express as an obsession to become an amputee or paraplegic, as just two examples. Here is an extreme case from the U.K. as reported by the Daily Mail: A surgeon with a “sexual obsession” for cutting off parts of his body had his own legs amputated as part of an insurance scam, officials in the UK said Read More ›

An article in the Daily Mail sounds the alarm that permitting infant euthanasia — i.e., infanticide — is under serious consideration in Canada: Canada‘s assisted suicide laws have continued rapidly expanding in recent years, with a group of doctors now pushing for disabled newborn babies to be euthanized.…As assisted deaths have become a major part of Canada’s health care system, the Quebec College of Physicians suggested legalizing euthanasia for infants born severely ill. Canada has jumped so enthusiastically into the euthanasia abyss that I have little doubt that infanticide will eventually be allowed there. It’s only logical. If killing is an acceptable answer to suffering, why limit the killing to adults? Besides, as the story briefly notes, the Netherlands already Read More ›

Legalizing euthanasia/assisted suicide, abortion, and transgender interventions for dysphoric children is only the beginning of the ongoing destruction of Hippocratic moral values in medicine. Once such interventions are legal, activists next insist that they become readily available. But many (and I hope most) doctors want nothing to do with causing death or interfering with the normal functioning of healthy bodies. Indeed, many assisted suicide, abortion, and gender ideologues complain that too few doctors willingly participate in these procedures, as is sometimes protected by the law. These “medical conscience” rights inhibit the increasing hegemony of utilitarian medical values in health care. As a result, once life-taking or mutilating procedures become legal, efforts soon begin to conscript unwilling medical professionals into performing Read More ›

As established by the great medical humanitarian, the late Dame Cecily Saunders, hospice was designed to treat “total pain” of patients — whether physical, emotional, or spiritual — to the end of ensuring that the care offered is about living, not just death. When it works as intended, as it did for both my parents, the beneficence offered to patients and their families cannot be quantified.

Alas, the hospice movement is in serious trouble. I can’t tell you how often now people approach me after a speech or call in on talk radio to tell me that they do not trust hospice to properly care for their loved ones.

Why has this happened? My friend Ira Byock, the great palliative doctor and author of Dying Well, has noted that the for-profit sector of the industry too often does not live up to the hospice promise of profoundly personal and compassionate care. Also, there is a problem with fraud and abuse, about which, Byock insists, there must be institutional “zero tolerance.” In addition, the integration of palliative care within the American health system has stalled, despite demonstrating that quality care for seriously ill and dying people is both feasible and affordable.

And from my perspective — not Byock’s — the assisted suicide movement has been a body blow to the hospice movement. Partly this is because the media is so besotted with “aid in dying” propaganda that there is little room left to tell good hospice stories. But I also blame institutional hospice organizations, which pretend that assisted suicide isn’t a mortal threat to the hospice philosophy. As a consequence of this institutional cowardice, all one hears from hospice organizations about legalizing assisted suicide is the proverbial sound of silence, further diminishing the importance of the sector.

Wesley J. Smith appeared on the Ann and Phelim Scoop, hosted by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, to discuss the spread of euthanasia through the West. Comparing it to a metastasizing cancer, Wesley casts light on why euthanasia has become so popular, the state of euthanasia in Canada, the real reasons people seek euthanasia, and its devastating effects on human life.

On April 3, 2025, Wesley J. Smith gave a presentation to Wisconsin Right to Life. After sharing how a friend’s suicide under the influence of the Hemlock Society propelled him into public opposition of the euthanasia movement, Smith explores the personal and societal consequences of embracing assisted suicide.

New York is close to passing a bill to legalize assisted suicide. Having passed the assembly, it is currently being considered in the senate. I read the bill, and much of it consists of the usual obfuscating definitions and pretenses seen in all such proposals. But a few of the provisions struck me as particularly mendacious. First, it defines prescribing poison as a “medical practice.” From S. 138: “Medical aid in dying” means the medical practice of a physician prescribing medication to a qualified individual that the individual may choose to self-administer to bring about death. Facilitating suicide is not, and never has been, “medical.” I could prescribe sufficient barbiturates to cause death by overdose. You could too. The only Read More ›