Frederico Carboni made international news recently when he died in Italy’s first legal assisted suicide. Carboni was not terminally ill. He was paralyzed from an auto accident. He wanted suicide because he had no autonomy, saying in an interview, “I am like a boat adrift in the ocean.” Read More ›
The Netherlands and Belgium already permit people diagnosed with dementia to sign an advance directive ordering themselves killed when they become incapacitated. Read More ›
Talk about efficiency. Some enterprising Canadian funeral homes are offering their, er, customers, the option of one-stop death and mortuary services, renting out a room in which to be killed and then quickly prepared for final disposition. Read More ›
As if we needed further evidence that medicine is growing increasingly impersonal, the Canadian Medical Association Journal has published a study that claims a computer program can predict when seniors have six months to live. Read More ›
The black market in human organs for transplantation is one of the worst ongoing human rights abuses in the world today. But here’s the problem: Many decry organ trafficking, but few do anything about it. Read More ›
Good for Canada — a sentiment I haven’t been able to make very often lately. But a Senate committee has unanimously passed a bill that would outlaw Canadians from entering the black market for organs overseas, an exploitive phenomenon sometimes called “organ tourism.” Read More ›
Should psychiatrists and other doctors assist the suicides of mentally ill patients? Not that long ago, the answer to that question would have been unequivocally, “No” The job of a mental health professional is to save the lives of suicidal patients, not help them die. Read More ›
The media love to boost assisted suicide. They laud people who commit it — witness their swoon over the late Brittany Maynard — and the doctors who are willing to lethally prescribe or give lethal injections. Read More ›
The push is on in Canada to normalize euthanasia as the best way to die — to save money and emotional turmoil. How hard is the push? Reader’s Digest Canada — no less — has published a guide to end-of-life planning that pushes euthanasia and doesn’t even mention hospice. Read More ›
