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 ›
I have written here before about Delta Hospice in British Columbia, which has been under unremitting pressure by the government of the province — including a funding cutoff — only because it refuses to participate in euthanasia. It is now being forced to lay off clinical workers and faces eviction. Read More ›
