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TagEuthanasia

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Senior woman sitting on the wheelchair alone

Euthanasia’s Slippery Slope

Once a society embraces death as the answer to suffering, what counts as suffering never stops expanding.
Note well that the concept of the “completed life” need not involve any physical illness, disabling condition, or psychiatric malady at all. Read More ›
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Modern glass elevator and escalator in a shopping mall. Empty mall.

Zero K: A Novel About Escaping the World Through Technology

Zero K by novelist Don DeLillo is a frightening but prophetic tale of transhumanism and the temptation to evade suffering at all costs.
The book is prophetic, merging two pertinent issues into one speculative tale: euthanasia and transhumanism. Read More ›
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Laboratory technician checking CDC specimen submitting form, laboratory testing for SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 Coronavirus disease infection,global pandemic crisis,swab collection patient specimen procedure

CDC Neglects to Include Assisted Deaths in Official Suicide Report

Assisted dying is a form of suicide, regardless of the ways our culture has euphemized the term
The term suicide defines what is done, not why. In other words, assisted suicides are as much suicides as jumping off a bridge. Read More ›
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Hallway the emergency room and outpatient hospital. 3d illustration

The Small Steps That Lead to Dystopia

Revisiting a 1993 article warning about the future of assisted suicide

Editor’s Note: The following piece was originally published in Newsweek in June 1993. Today is my 76th birthday,” the letter began. “Unassisted and by my own free will, I have chosen to take my final passage.” Suicide. My friend Frances died in a cold, impersonal hotel room after taking an overdose of sleeping pills, with a plastic bag tied over her head suffocating the life out of her body. Frances was not a happy woman. She had family troubles. She suffered from chronic lymphatic leukemia and was facing the difficult prospect of a hip replacement. She also had a chronic nerve condition that caused her to feel a burning sensation on her skin. But Frances was lucid, aware and involved. Read More ›

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Hospital through the eyes of patient

Patients Opting for Euthanasia in the Face of Painful Circumstances

Receiving assistance takes a long time. But to be made dead? Not so much.

So much compassion! A disabled woman with quadriplegia named Rose Finlay in Canada has asked to be euthanized because she is destitute, and the disability benefits she applied for would not arrive in time for her to be properly housed and cared for. From the CBC story: A quadriplegic woman in Bowmanville, Ont., has applied for medical assistance in dying (MAID), saying it’s easier to access than the support services she needs to live her life comfortably. Receiving assistance takes a long time. But to be made dead? Not so much: The single mother of three boys previously supported her family with earnings from disability advocacy work through her company, Inclusive Solutions. That’s also how she could afford to hire her own support Read More ›

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equipment and medical devices in modern operating room

Medical Association is “Neutral” on Assisted Suicide

This is a matter of the gravest ethical concern

How in the world can a medical association be neutral on granting doctors a license to kill or assist the suicide of their patients? This is a matter of the gravest medical ethical concern, an action, remember, that was strictly proscribed 2,500 years ago in the Hippocratic Oath. Utter Cowardice But yield to the pressures of the activists is what the UK’s Royal College of Surgeons has done, in an act of utter cowardice based on a survey answered by only 19 percent of its members. From the Daily Mail story: The Royal College of Surgeons is no longer opposed to assisted dying and is now ‘neutral’, it has been announced. The organisation’s council members voted after discussing survey results, which showed an appetite for change, a Read More ›

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Beauty injection concept. Syringe with violet liquid for hypodermic injection.

This Country Just Legalized Euthanasia

The law isn't even limited to those who are terminally ill

Alas. The president of Portugal just signed into law a bill legalizing euthanasia by lethal injection. It is not limited to the terminally ill — which is at least honest, since that is not what euthanasia/assisted suicide is really all about. From the Reuters story: The law specifies that people would be allowed to request assistance in dying in cases when they are “in a situation of intense suffering, with definitive injury of extreme gravity or serious and incurable disease.” It establishes a two-month gap between accepting a request and the actual procedure and makes psychological support mandatory. Strict guidelines and all that jazz. Not only are they unlikely to be strictly enforced but will soon be redefined from protections to barriers, Read More ›

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Doctor hand holding a stethoscope listening to heartbeat

“Harm Reduction” is Euthanasia’s New Euphemism

Bioethics is growing increasingly monstrous. And that matters.

Once killing the sufferer becomes a societally acceptable means for ending suffering, there is no end to the “suffering” that justifies human termination. We can see this phenomenon most vividly in Canada, because it is happening there more quickly than in most cultures. For example, a recent poll found that 27 percent of Canadians polled strongly or moderately agree that euthanasia is acceptable for suffering caused by “poverty” and 28 percent strongly or moderately agree that killing by doctors is acceptable for suffering caused by homelessness. I can’t imagine that being true ten years ago before euthanasia became legal. Euthanasia mutates a society’s soul.  Killing as “Harm Reduction” This kind of abandonment thinking finds enthusiastic, albeit not unanimous, expression among secular bioethicists. In fact, two Canadian bioethicists just Read More ›

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Hinduism, Philosophy, and the Mind

Arjuna Gallagher is the host of the YouTube Channel called Theology Unleashed and a Hindu. He discusses Hinduism’s unique perspective regarding subjects such as metaphysics, evil, and free will with Dr. Michael Egnor. They also address creation, social ethics, and the relationship of the mind and the body. Additional Resources Dr. Michael Egnor Follow Arjuna Gallagher on Facebook Subscribe to Read More ›

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Hindu Goddess Statue Against The Wall

Hinduism and Social Ethics

What does Hinduism teach about social ethics issues? Is there a consensus among most Hindus, or are there a variety of viewpoints? Dr. Michael Egnor and his guest, Arjuna Gallagher address current issues such as cancel culture, abortion, euthanasia, and suicide. Show Notes 00:10 | Introducing Arjuna Gallagher 00:52 | Cancel Culture 02:29 | Hinduism, Abortion, and Euthanasia 17:14 | Read More ›

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In the Hospital Sick Man Lying on the Bed, His Visiting Wife Hopefully Sits Beside Him and Prays for His Rapid Recovery. Tragic, Somber and Melancholy Scene.

Is It Safe to Revise the Standard for Legally Recognized Brain Death?

People have a right to not have a controversial concept of death imposed upon them

Originally published on MercatorNet on May 28, 2021 by Nancy Valko I have been writing for many years about the implications of brain death, the lesser known “donation after cardiac/circulatory death”, diagnosed brain death cases like the supposedly “impossible” prolonged survival and maturation of Jahi McMath, and unexpected recoveries like Zack Dunlap’s. Some mothers declared “brain dead” were able to gestate their babies for weeks or months to a successful delivery before their ventilators were removed. Last August, I wrote about the World Brain Death Project and the effort to establish a worldwide consensus on brain death criteria and testing to develop the “minimum clinical standards for determination of brain death” (emphasis added). I also wrote about the current effort “to revise the (US) Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) to assure a Read More ›

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Human skull with a syringe holds in the mouth and vaccine bottle on space of brown paper, Bad side effect concept

Michael Egnor: Stop Making Killing a Form of Cure

Euthanasia and abortion are not forms of medicine, he says

Recently, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor pleaded with medical colleagues to take a stronger stand on the rapid normalization of killing as a form of “cure” in our society: The medical profession should take a clear stand on this issue: doctors who deliberately kill — whether by abortion or by physician-assisted suicide or by euthanasia — are not practicing medicine when they kill. Medical practice always entails the maintenance of health, the treatment of disease, and the relief of suffering. Ending the life of a patient or of the child in his mother’s womb is neither the maintenance of health nor treatment of a disease nor the alleviation of any suffering. It is simply the killing of an innocent unwanted child. I Read More ›