Rita Marker

The Human Life Review held their 50th Anniversary Gala on November 13, 2024. Wesley J. Smith was invited to give tribute to Nat Hentoff and Rita Marker. Following are his remarks. Thank you all for being here at this important event and thank you, Maria and Anne, for inviting me to say a few words. You know, as I pondered what I would say tonight, I thought about what it is that people with excellence in advocacy — what are their attributes. I came up with five. One is integrity. Two, know your stuff. Three, be unremitting, never quit. Four, don’t be expedient. That’s a hard one sometimes — don’t be expedient. And five, have a willingness to sacrifice. And 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 ›