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Peter Singer is a calm, lucid and able debater, and our debate at Biola University in Los Angeles on April 25 was lively and hard-fought. Not for nothing is Singer considered a world-class philosopher and advocate. To watch the debate go to dineshdsouza.com and click on my AOL blog. Singer praised me for not simply making assertions of faith or hurling Bible passages at him but rather for using reason and argument to make my case . And I complimented Singer for stepping, so to speak, into the lion's den. (Biola actually stands for Bible Institute of Los Angeles.) Unlike...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new poll finds a majority of Americans would support their own state following Oregon's lead and legalizing assisted suicide. The results, if accurate, should be a concern for pro-life advocates who are working hard to stop Washington and other states from following suit.Knowledge Networks conducted the survey online and about 66 percent of the 1,100 people polled said they would favor legalizing assisted suicide.Other results from the survey showed more than 80 percent of Americans believe neither the government, the church nor a third party should decide when people should have a right to...

Rita L. Marker is an attorney and executive director of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Deadly Compassion, that has been called a compelling, persuasive, well-written and revealing discussion of both the personal and public sides of the euthanasia debate.No matter the event, the venue or the audience – in the United States or in another country – assisted-suicide activists portray assisted suicide as the exercise of personal autonomy that is used to end unbearable suffering. Conversely, opponents raise concerns that transforming assisted suicide from a crime...

St. Petersburg, FL -- Terri Schiavo's mother Mary Schindler has uncovered a note that Terri wrote back in 1984 when she married her husband Michael. Now remarried to someone with whom he had an affair before Terri's death, Michael won a court order to take her live despite pleas from her family. Terri's brother Bobby Schindler tells LifeNews.com about the note. Complete story at: http://www.LifeNews.com/bio2440.html

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE -- Former Gov. Booth Gardner no longer runs the state, but now he'd like to be in control in a different way. He wants to be able to die on his own terms if his quality of life becomes seriously diminished, he said at a meeting of the Lynnwood Rotary Club on Thursday. Gardner, 72, has Parkinson's disease. For the past year, he has been promoting the controversial cause of physician-assisted suicide. "I recognize there are people here who won't like what I'm about to say, and others who will be with me implicitly," he said. "I respect...

Pro-life advocates are launching an e-mail campaign in an attempt to save the life of a young woman injured by a drug overdose who now is facing the possibility of a court-ordered death by dehydration and starvation.WND previously has reported on the case involve Randy Richardson, who is fighting his ex-wife, the medical establishment and the court system for the life of his 23-year-old daughter, Lauren Marie Richardson."She's committed no crime and doesn't deserve to have this death imposed on her," he told the Wilmington, Del., News Journal earlier, citing the case that carries striking parallels to the 2005...

An Alaska woman, accused of killing her newborn baby boy at her parents’ Grand Junction home, gave birth at a neighbor’s home, wrapped him in a plastic garbage bag and left him in a tote bag in a closet that her parents found more than two months later, according to her arrest affidavit. Morgan Hite, 22, of Wasilla, Alaska, is in custody on a no-bond warrant, but she refused extradition to Grand Junction during a court hearing Wednesday in Palmer, Alaska. Hite has retained an attorney, and her next court appearance is June 6.

Dover, DE (LifeNews.com) -- The family of Lauren Richardson continues to press her case and is now calling on the governor of Delaware for help to save her life. Richardson has become the next Terri Schiavo as her parents engage in a massive legal and philosophical debate about whether she should live or die.Richardson is a 23-year-old woman who overdosed on heroin in August 2006 while she was three months pregnant with a baby girl.Doctors kept Lauren on life support until she delivered her baby in February 2007. Shortly thereafter, her parents began a fight that is reminiscent of...

May 5, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ben Stein has suffered extensive media criticism for drawing the connection between Darwin, Hitler, and the modern eugenics movements in a powerful 10-minute section of his film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed".In an MSNBC.com review, Arthur Caplan calls the connection Stein draws between Darwin's theory and the Holocaust "despicable".  Neo-Darwinians on the whole have unleashed a barrage of insults at Stein and his work. They have also, however, completely failed to address the intimidating body of evidence Stein presents to support his claims.  While Stein has explicitly asserted that not every neo-Darwinist is a eugenicist, an examination of the historic...

Plan for long life, without pandemic NANCY STANCILL Should doctors let people older than 85 die in a flu pandemic? A Monday news story saying a U.S. task force recommends denying lifesaving care in a pandemic or other disaster to some folks -- including healthy people above 85 -- was unsettling. They're talking about my mother, soon to be 86. My friend Karen's father, who is 92. Another friend's grandmother, 102. These people live life joyfully, with their minds and hearts intact. My mother relishes foreign travel. Karen's father loves bird watching. The 102-year-old grandmother plays a mean hand of...

Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) -- Undaunted by their repeated failure to get the California legislature to approve a bill legalizing assisted suicide, the sponsors of the bill are moving forward with a new measure that promotes euthanasia in limited circumstances. Pro-life groups are asking for phone calls to defeat the bill. Last Tuesday, on a straight party line vote, the Assembly Judiciary Committee sent AB 2747 to the Assembly floor.Assemblymembers Patty Berg and Lloyd Levine, the authors of the pro-assisted suicide bill, are behind the bill.Brian Johnston, the head of the California Pro-Life Council and the author of a seminal...

Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) -- Undaunted by their repeated failure to get the California legislature to approve a bill legalizing assisted suicide, the sponsors of the bill are moving forward with a new measure that promotes euthanasia in limited circumstances. Pro-life groups are asking for phone calls to defeat the bill.

Contact: Loralei Coyle, 202-905-6852 cell, lcoyle@TheIRD.org; Radio Interviews: Jeff Walton, 202-413-5639 cell, jwalton@TheIRD.org; both with the Institute on Religion and Democracy FT. WORTH, Texas, May 3 /Christian Newswire/ -- The United Methodist General Conference, the Church's governing body that meets every 4 years, overwhelmingly adopted several petitions affirming the sanctity of life during its quadrennial meeting in Fort Worth. Conference delegates voted to: "Affirm and encourage the Church to assist the ministry of crisis pregnancy centers and pregnancy resource centers that compassionately help women find feasible alternatives to abortion." "Respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother...

Amsterdam, Netherlands (LifeNews.com) -- The official number of euthanasia cases in the Netherlands is on the rise, but not all cases of killing patients are included. The official report mentions only three cases involving physicians who didn't follow the proper protocols when killing the patient.The ANP news service indicated the number of euthanasia cases rose to 2,120 last year from 1,923 in 2006.In three instances, the regional committees responsible for ensuring the criteria for legal euthanasia are followed indicated doctors had not adhered to the law.The report indicated the committees forwarded information about the cases to the justice department and...

Amsterdam, Netherlands (LifeNews.com) -- The official number of euthanasia cases in the Netherlands is on the rise, but not all cases of killing patients are included. The official report mentions only three cases involving physicians who didn't follow the proper protocols when killing the patient. The ANP news service indicated the number of euthanasia cases rose to 2,120 last year from 1,923 in 2006.

Tempe, AZ (LifeNews.com) -- Arizona State University is coming under fire for inviting controversial infanticide advocate Peter Singer to speak on campus. The Princeton professor will reportedly receive $20,000 for the speech, where the audience will not be allowed to question him on his anti-newborn views. Singer promoted the notion as early as 1984 that parents of disabled newborns be allowed to kill the baby shortly after birth. In some cases, he says newborns with disabilities should absolutely be killed.He expanded on the idea with the publication of his book Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants...

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 25, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the April 5 address Benedict XVI gave upon meeting with participants of the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council of the Family. The theme of the assembly was "Grandparents: Their Witness and Presence in the Family." * * * Your Eminences,Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,Dear Brothers and Sisters, I am pleased to meet you at the end of the 18th Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family on the theme: "Grandparents: their witness and presence in the family". I thank you for accepting my suggestion at...

Madrid, Apr 11, 2008 / 03:21 pm (CNA).- The Spanish magazine Huellas has published an interview with Sylvie Menard, one of the most renowned oncologists in Europe who for many years was a supporter of euthanasia but several months ago changed her views after she was diagnosed with bone cancer. Menard told the magazine that she always believed that each person should decide his own fate, but ‘when I became ill, I changed my position radically.”“When you get sick, death ceases to be something virtual and becomes something that is with you every day,” she said.  “So you say...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- An author writing a new biography on Pope Benedict XVI says genocide during the Nazi regime in World War II played a key role in shaping the pro-life views of the Catholic leader. Author Brennan Pursell relates the story in his upcoming book Benedict of Bavaria. Pursell learned of the tragic story while compiling material for the book. He found out that, as a 14-year-old boy, Joseph Ratzinger had a cousin born with Down Syndrome who was just a couple years younger. In 1941, German "therapists" arrived at the boy's home and took him away --...

Veteran MSP Margo MacDonald plans to research clinics abroad which allow those with terminal illnesses to end their own lives. The 64-year-old, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, recently told fellow MSPs that she should be allowed to bring about her own death. She is now calling for a public debate on assisted suicide. Ms MacDonald, independent MSP for the Lothians, said: "I want to research the whole topic." She said she had not investigated how assisted suicide abroad operates before and added: "I'm not exactly at death's door." However, she said: "I feel a responsibility because I've spoken about the...

Madrid, Spain (LifeNews.com) -- A respected European oncologist has changed her mind about euthanasia after battling cancer. Sylvie Menard's change of heart has one leading anti-euthanasia activist to urge people not to abandon the elderly and disabled patients who need love and support the most as they battle medical problems. Menard, one of the most renowned oncologists in Europe, has been battling bone cancer and she shared her transformation on end-of-life issues with the Spanish magazine Huellas. "Those who promote euthanasia do so for two reasons: they don’t want to suffer and they don’t want to lose self-sufficiency, thus becoming...

Princeton, NJ (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's brother Bobby Schindler has been on a speaking tour this week that's taking him to colleges and universities across the country. Schindler was at Princeton University on Tuesday and he told students there that misconceptions still exist about his sister's euthanasia death. Terri died in March 2005 after her former husband won a court order to take her life despite requests from the Schindler family to provide her with medical and rehabilitative care.Though more than three years have passed since the Schindler family's lost their years-long legal battle to save her life, Schindler says...

HULL, UK, April 9, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In Hitler's Germany, long before 1939, vulnerable patients in nursing homes, insane asylums and orphanages were being killed by medical practitioners, including nurses, in the Nazi eugenics programme Aktion T4 that some estimate killed as many as 200,000 to 250,000 people. Next week, Linda Shields, a professor of nursing at Hull University in Yorkshire, will give a speech outlining the implications for the profession today of the participation of nurses in the Nazi programme. Professor Shields will speak at the Royal College of Nursing's Annual Research conference on the implications today of the...

The Kansas Supreme Court heard arguments today over subpoenaed medical records of notorious abortionist George Tiller, who is accused of performing late-term abortions — which are illegal in Kansas — at his Wichita clinic. In January, the Sedgwick County grand jury subpoenaed about 2,000 late-term abortion records from Tiller’s clinic; the judge reduced that to 250. Tiller is refusing to turn over the records, claiming it would violate his patients’ privacy. However, the grand jury requested that all patient-identifying information be redacted from the subpoenaed records before the jury receives them. Tiller's attorneys argued the grand jury investigation constitutes harassment,...

Salem, OR (LifeNews.com) -- Comments pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made over the weekend have drawn significant attention from those opposed to euthanasia. Clinton gave a convoluted answer to a local Oregon newspaper's question on assisted suicide but appeared to support the grisly practice.The Eugene Register Guard newspaper asked Clinton about her "attitude" towards the law."I believe it's within the province of the states to make that decision," Clinton said.She said she didn't know if she would have voted for the law when Oregon voters twice voted to make the state the first to legalize assisted suicide."I don't know...

EUGENE, Oregon, April 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gave an interview with the editor of Eugene's Register-Guard paper, Jack Wilson, on April 6, in which she praised Oregon's assisted suicide laws.Clinton, who spoke in Eugene on the same day as leading conservative bioethicist Wesley J. Smith, commended Oregon for providing the "right" to assisted suicide."I believe it's within the province of the states to make that decision," said Clinton when asked by Wilson about her attitude toward assisted suicide. "I commend Oregon on this count, as well, because whether I agree with it or not...

Interviewed Tuesday for Charlie Rose's PBS show, CNN founder Ted Turner argued that inaction on global warming “will be catastrophic” and those who don't die “will be cannibals.” He also applied moral equivalence in describing Iraqi insurgents as “patriots” who simply “don't like us because we've invaded their country” and so “if the Iraqis were in Washington, D.C., we'd be doing the same thing.” On not taking drastic action to correct global warming: Not doing it will be catastrophic. We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will...

A severely disfigured French woman, found dead this month after a court rejected her request for euthanasia, took a lethal overdose of barbiturates, a prosecutor said on Thursday. Former schoolteacher Chantal Sebire, 52, suffered from a rare and incurable tumour which severely deformed her face and caused her to lose the sense of smell, taste and finally her eyesight. Her body was found at her home in Plombieres-les-Dijon on March 19, two days after the high court in the eastern French city of Dijon decided current French law did not allow her doctor to prescribe her lethal drugs. "The tests...

The Twenty-First Century Challenge to Human Dignity This article is from the October 2006 BreakPoint WorldView magazine. Sign up today to receive the free online edition 10 times a year!In the manifesto on the “Sanctity of Life in a Brave New World” that Chuck Colson and I launched with representative Christian leaders in the spring of 2004, we addressed four key areas for Christian concern at the outset of the “biotech century.” They all converge on one concept: eugenics. Eugenics is the idea that we should weed out the sick and the diseased and favor the strong and healthy....

Very few people could have looked upon Chantal Sébire at the end of her life and not understood why the former schoolteacher wished to end it. Left horribly disfigured and in frequent torment from incurable tumors that amassed in her sinuses and skull, Sébire's plea that doctors be allowed to legally terminate her life deeply moved French public opinion. It also prompted considerable reexamination of the nation's laws prohibiting active euthanasia —reflection that has continued in the wake of Sébire's March 19 suicide. But the passionate debate Sébire's case sparked may well have unfolded differently had the French public been...

Recently, and for the second time in less than a year, presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama stated that his greatest regret as a Senator was not objecting to a vote that was intended to help save my sister from being dehydrated to death. Senator Obama went so far as to say that this type of “inaction” (failure to speak out against the Senate’s unanimous consent to allow Terri the same due process allowed the most vicious of criminals) can sometimes prove to be just as costly as taking action. One has to wonder what could possibly have been “more costly”...

St. Petersburg, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's family and a leading pro-life group are calling on people to honor the disabled woman whose husband took her life in a painful euthanasia death. Together with Priests for Life, the Schindler family has established the observance of “Terri’s Day” each March 31. That's the day Terri succumbed to a 13-day starvation and dehydration death at the hand of Michael Schiavo, her former husband who won a court order to take her life.“This third anniversary should be an occasion for all of us to both remember the injustice done to Terri, and reach...

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The vast majority of people in France would support legislation to allow a doctor to end the life of a person with an incurable disease and enduring unbearable suffering, if this person requests it, according to a poll by Ifop published in Paris Match. 91 per cent of respondents would be at least partly in favour of enacting such a law. In November 2004, France’s National Assembly endorsed legislation which legalized "passive euthanasia." This concept allows doctors to withdraw life-sustaining medication from patients, but not to, for instance, administer poisons. Assisted suicide or "active...

WASHINGTON (BP)--Oregon recorded more deaths by physician-assisted suicide in 2007 than in any year in the decade since the practice was legalized. The Oregon Department of Human Services recently reported 49 people committed suicide last year using lethal doses of drugs prescribed by doctors. The previous yearly high was 46 in 2006. Oregon, the only state to legalize assisted suicide, has recorded 341 such deaths since its Death With Dignity Act took effect in late 1997. "The report shows that the situation in Oregon is not only creepy but creeping," bioethicist C. Ben Mitchell told Baptist Press. "Compassion means providing...

A German lawyer and politician has unveiled Europe's first suicide machine for people with a death wish as "an act of Christian love". The machine that can be rented and is then collected to be re-used by other clients kills painlessly at the push of a button. It was unveiled by Dr Roger Kusch, 53, head of a suicide assistance society in German, who said: "Press one button, and seconds later death arrives." Death wish: The machine gives a lethal injection at the touch of a button The machine, which is smaller than the size of a shoebox, and is...

Teenagers should be given the right to medically assisted suicide and the parents of terminally ill younger children should be able to choose euthanasia under proposals from members of Belgium's coalition government. The plans to extend rules allowing doctors to perform euthanasia on terminally ill people suffering "constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain" comes amid heated Belgian debate on the issue. Under existing Belgian laws, in place since 2002, patients, other than newborn babies, must be over 18 to qualify for assisted suicide, a situation that Bart Tommelein, leader of Belgium Liberals, wants changed. Mr Tommelein, whose party is...

A senior Church of Scotland minister has questioned the wisdom of spending large amounts of money keeping older people alive. The Reverend Maxwell Craig, 76, feels funding could be better spent helping the young stay out of trouble.

The culture of death is like heroin: Once you start to mainline, it is never enough. Consider the experience of the Netherlands. When euthanasia was quasi-legalized there by court order in 1973, access to mercy killing and assisted suicide were supposed to be limited to the very few. The killing would all be governed by euthanasia guidelines that, the Dutch people were assured, would protect against abuse. These included repeated requests, a lingering desire for death, second medical opinions, and a requirement that euthanasia was the only way to eliminate severe pain or suffering. It hasn't turned out that way,...

New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, longtime hosts of the chatty television program "The View," praised Jack Kevorkian in a recent episode. Following news that Kevorkian has planned a Congressional bid, they praised him for killing more than 130 people in assisted suicides and murdering a disabled patient.Kevorkian, a convicted murderer and assisted suicide crusader, made his candidacy for a Detroit-area Congressional seat official on Monday.Justin McCarthy, a news analyst at Media Research Center, noted the comments from "The View" hosts in a recent post on MRC's blog Newsbusters.Goldberg said she’s a "big fan" of...

Editor's note: The following commentary from Alex Schadenberg comes in response to a study in the Netherlands which found that 1,800 people - 7.1 percent of all deaths in the Netherlands in 2005 - were drugged into so-called continuous deep sedation shortly before dying. This compares with 5.6 percent of cases in 2001. At the same time, the use of euthanasia fell from 2.6 percent of all deaths to 1.7 percent, representing a decrease of 1,200 cases.The question of the use of deep sedation in the Netherlands as the alternative form of euthanasia is an important question. In the case...

Amsterdam, Netherlands (LifeNews.com) -- A Netherlands psychiatrist who assisted in the suicide of a grieving mother that ultimately led to the Dutch Supreme Court ruling that the depressed should have the right to kill themselves has now published a do-it-yourself guide to committing suicide. The guide is expected to go on sale soon in the European nation and it contains detailed information on how people can use drugs to kill themselves. It also contains information on how to perform other acts of suicide using starvation techniques and describes the quickest and least painful ways to do so. "Doctors learn little...

The phrase "Death with Dignity" may or may not be familiar to many citizens of the United States. However, it is yet another new term our society has had to learn and face in order to keep up with the polarized ethical debates which mark our time. It is the idea that as humans, we deserve to pass away in a dignified matter. However, for many citizens in our society, dignity means control. Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) is the practice in which a physician provides the means by which a patient takes his or her life. The most common manner...

PATIENTS are being given the opportunity to decide whether they want to die under a program being rolled out through Victorian hospitals. The Respecting Patients' Choices program allows patients in the early stages of chronic or terminal illness to make a formal written statement declaring their desire to refuse life-saving treatment in hospitals. Its pioneers say it will save families from the emotional anguish of having to make such decisions on behalf of their loved ones.

March 20, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - I had the privilege of attending and presenting to the Pontifical Academy for Life Congress, titled: “Close by the incurably sick person and the dying: scientific and ethical aspects,” from February 25 – 26. This was my third time I have had the opportunity to attend a Congress by the Pontifical Academy for Life since 2004. These meetings attempt to bring scientific knowledge, philosophical thought and theological reflection together to move the Catholic Church toward a greater understanding of the ethical issues of our time. This year’s congress was particularly interesting because some of the...

There is much talk today about the “culture of death” and certainly there are powerful forces emanating from competing worldviews that predictably foster such conditions. These worldviews have driven us as a culture to legitimize abortion, consider euthanasia, and proceed to cross a whole host of bio-ethical issues as technology advances. However, these worldviews, in which the value of life and human dignity are diminished, inevitably encounter a most formidable obstacle: natural revelation. The doctrine of natural revelation was probably best articulated by the 13th century theologian and philosopher, Thomas Aquinas in his monumental work, Summa Theologica. Aquinas argued that...

Salem OR (LifeNews.com) -- Oregon officials have released their tenth statewide report on the status of assisted suicide there and it found the number of people who died is on the rise. The report also showed the number of people getting drugs to use in taking their own lives is increasing as well.More people received lethal drugs from doctors to kill themselves than any previous year under the state's first-in-the-nation law legalizing assisted suicide.The report showed 85 people received the drugs (an increase of 20 from the year prior) while 49 people had their physicians help them kill themselves (up...

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, March 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Samuel Golubchuk's children are continuing the fight to keep their father alive against the efforts of hospital doctors who are determined to starve and dehydrate him to death, regardless of the family's wishes. In February, Justice Perry Schulman of the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench granted a temporary injunction allowing Mr. Golubchuk to remain on life support until a trial could rule on the issue. The judge, in granting the injunction, said that there were sufficient grounds to doubt the hospital's analysis of the patient's condition.On Friday March 14th, lawyers for the...

by Richard Lawrence Poe Monday, January 14, 2008 Permanent LinkPast Columns ARE YOU one of the 80 million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1965? If so, Hillary Clinton wants you dead. That, at least, appears to be the intent of her new plan for universal health care. In it, Hillary promises health coverage for all, yet vows to slash medical spending in America by $120 billion per year. The problem is that health care costs money. Cutting spending means cutting care. Just like her old plan from 1993, Hillary's new plan will cut costs by rationing health care....

March 17, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Dignitas euthanasia "clinic" has reopened its doors in a facility located next to Switzerland's largest brothel. Dignitas, which has repeatedly made international headlines for its unapologetic mission to assist the ill from around the world to kill themselves, was evicted from its previous facility in September of last year after fellow tenants complained of the constant stream of dead bodies leaving the building. Gloria Sonny, 53, a resident in the same building as Dignitas' old clinic, told the Telegraph at the time, "We call it the 'House of Horrors'.""This is meant to be...

DIJON, France, March 17, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A mother of three who lives in the Bourgogne region of Eastern France has had her plea to be euthanized by her doctor rejected by a court in Dijon. The court ruled that French law does not permit a doctor to prescribe lethal drugs to patients. The case of the 53-year-old woman, Chantal Sebire, has garnered widespread sympathy in France, especially since she appeared on national television and made an appeal to French President Nicholas Sarkozy to intervene on her behalf and accede to her request to be killed. The French President responded...