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The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a statement opposing legalization of assisted suicide. It makes some very good points, with which people of all faiths, or none, can find agreement. It can be read at http://www.usccb.org/toliveeachday/bishops-statement-physician-assisted-suicide.pdf. Below in italics is the commentary on the Bishops’ statement released by … [Read more...] about They Said it Better than We Could: Californians against Assisted Suicide on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Statement against Legalizing Assisted Suicide

From the Independent, a newspaper in the UK, where the BBC broadcast an assisted suicide this week. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-why-the-disabled-fear-assisted-suicide-2297116.html Tuesday, 14 June 2011 Dominic Lawson Last night, courtesy of the BBC, we could watch a man being killed – voluntarily. The much-heralded … [Read more...] about Why the disabled fear assisted suicide

The Ross Douthat article we posted yesterday seems in the light of another day to allow for far too much ambiguity about assisted suicide. Yes, we should be proud that in America at least some murderers like Jack Kevorkian go to jail. But it is important to understand three things Douthat failed to make perfectly clear and may not himself understand:   1. Where … [Read more...] about Saying it Once Again: Legal Assisted Suicide Always, Always, Always Destroys Patient Choices at the End of Life

June 5, 2011 Dr. Kevorkian’s Victims By ROSS DOUTHAT http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/opinion/06douthat.html?ref=global The case for assisted suicide seems to depend on human sympathy — on the impulse toward mercy, the desire to ease what seems like pointless pain and suffering. Why shouldn’t the terminally ill meet death on their own terms, rather than at the end of … [Read more...] about Ross Douthat in the New York Times: In the US Murderers Like Kevorkian Go to Jail

Most articles about the death of Jack Kevorkian have been fairly objective, but the bulk of the comments about the articles have been hymns of praise for the doctor, who died receiving the kind of palliative care everyone deserves and with the music of JS Bach playing in the background. Despite having liver cancer, ironically the same disease from which the woman who commits … [Read more...] about “Not Dead Yet” Puts the “We Treat Animals More Kindly than Human Beings” Argument to Sleep