Once a society generally accepts killing as an acceptable answer to human suffering, the categories of "suffering" permitting termination continually expand. Latest example: Spain, where people with serious mental illnesses may soon be permitted to be put down. Read More ›
Most of the media report on euthanasia in the glowing, uncritical language of empowered patients "dying peacefully on their own terms." In contrast, euthanasia abuses and horror stories—an ever-growing list—generally receive little focused media attention and remain outside the notice of people not engaged with the issue. Read More ›
This proposal suffers from the same fatal ethical flaw. Prisoners are hardly in an equal bargaining position. Nor should they be induced to turn themselves into a natural resource ripe for the harvest. Read More ›
Some lines should never be crossed. Allowing doctors to kill patients during organ harvesting wouldn’t only be an acute threat to the sanctity of life, but I can think of no better way to sow mistrust in our health care system generally—and the lifesaving field of organ transplant medicine specifically. Read More ›
In my first anti-euthanasia column, written for Newsweek in 1993, I warned that if assisted suicide/euthanasia became legal and normalized, it would lead to “organ harvesting thrown in as a plum to society.” Needless to say, I was called a fear monger, alarmist, and hysteric — and those were the polite hate mailers. Read More ›
We have entered the era of what I call “do harm medicine,” in which the concept of what constitutes harming the patient has become entirely malleable and subjective. I even wrote a book covering that subject. 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 ›
They said they wouldn’t do it, but of course they did. Scientists working in China — where else? — have constructed embryos that are part human and part monkey. Read More ›
