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“I want to end it if the pain gets unbearable,” 63-year-old Melanie S. tells Lukas Radbruch, a doctor at University Hospital Bonn, who has also been serving as the president of the German Association for Palliative Medicine since 2014. She has end-stage lung cancer, and fears she could suddenly lose the ability to swallow and this suffocate while fully conscious. This possibility has led Melanie S. to consider assisted suicide. But so far, paragraph 217 of Germany’s criminal code prohibits assisted suicide. The law was adopted in 2015 by Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, to prevent associations or individuals from turning...

Portugal’s parliament debated Thursday whether to allow euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill people, with lawmakers expected to vote to approve the procedures later in the day. Outside the parliament building in Lisbon, hundreds of people opposed to euthanasia waved banners and chanted “Sim a vida!” (“Yes to life!”). One banner said, “Euthanasia doesn’t end suffering, it ends life.” Some people held up crucifixes and religious effigies. Approval of one of the five bills being discussed would leave Portugal poised to become one of the few countries in the world permitting the procedures. But the country’s president is known...

“If you show up with cancer & you’re 95 years old, we should say, Go & enjoy. There’s no cure, we can’t do anything. A young person, we should do something. Society’s not willing to do that yet.”

A new video posted on Sunday shows former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg explaining how healthcare will “bankrupt us,” unless we deny care to the elderly.

Despite Swiss Air’s ten-year affiliation with Läderach, the airline dropped the chocolatier after protests and extensive vandalism by left-wing activists, homosexuals, and young socialists, according to a report by LifeSite News. Jürg Läderach, who owns the high-end chocolate company, is also the president of “Christianity for Today” (CFT), a Swiss evangelical organization Last fall, activists attacked a Läderach store in Basel, Switzerland, using Butyric acid, forcing the store to close for two days. This assault was just one instance of vandalism against the chocolatier, which reportedly took place at seven different stores. According to the Swiss news magazine Beobachter, negative...

A Washington attorney who leads an anti-euthanasia organization has filed an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief in Glassman v. Grewal, a New Jersey case brought by a physician who seeks to overturn the NJ Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act. The law went into effect August 1, 2019, and enables a qualified terminally ill patient to request a medication to end his or her life. A medical doctor has challenged the law, claiming among other things that the Act violates the fundamental right to defend life. A trial court temporarily suspended the law’s enforcement. The NJ...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this week that he would sign a law allowing physician-assisted suicide in his state. A pro-abortion Democrat who claims to be Catholic, Cuomo drew national outrage earlier this year when he signed a law allowing unborn babies to be aborted for basically any reason up to birth. The law drew massive outrage for stripping away basically all protections for unborn babies and some for women, too. Though the Catholic Church opposes assisted suicide and abortion, Cuomo apparently supports them both. In an interview Tuesday with WAMC, he said he would sign a law allowing...

In recent years, the Church of Norway has undergone a marked shift in hot-button issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion, in effect abandoning its century-long stance. A member survey conducted by the Norwegian Church for the sake of a better rapport with its associates has yielded surprising results. While highlighting a high degree of agreement on matters of climate and poverty, it also revealed that the church and its members are far apart on issues such as euthanasia (or “active death help”, which it's called in Scandinavia) that is supported by 46 percent of church members. The same survey...

The revelation that the Missouri state health department had a spreadsheet that tracked the menstrual cycles of Planned Parenthood patients has set off a firestorm in the medical and political arenas Wednesday and led to a call for the dismissal of the department’s director. Dr. Randall Williams said in sworn testimony Tuesday that the spreadsheet was used to find so-called “failed” abortions, in which Planned Parenthood patients had to return to the St. Louis clinic to complete the procedure. But on Wednesday medical professionals expressed puzzlement and outrage about the practice, asserting that it served no legitimate purpose. OBGYN Jennifer...

[Catholic Caucus] From Infanticide To Euthanasia. The “Buen Vivir” in the Amazon Is Made of This As Well Marcia María de Oliveira, a Brazilian, is among the 25 coworkers of the two special secretaries of the synod for the Amazon: the Jesuit Michael Czerny, made a cardinal by Pope Francis last October 5, and the Dominican David Martínez de Aguirre Guinea, bishop of Puerto Maldonado, in Perù.De Oliveira is a specialist on Amazonian societies and cultures, and was called to collaborate as an “expert” along with, among others, the Argentine Carlos María Galli, a theoretician of “the people’s theology,” and...

On May 31, 2002, 18-year-old Brenden Flynn was involved in an auto accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was med-flighted to a hospital in Syracuse, New York. Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to Park Ridge Hospital near Rochester, where doctors notified his mother, MaryJo Flynn, that Brenden had a zero chance of recovery or having any meaningful “quality of life.” They suggested ending his life. If Brenden were to survive, his doctors said, he would be in a nursing home for the rest of his life. Brenden’s mother, not wanting to make the decision to end her son’s...

The rollout of Maine’s new law allowing doctors to prescribe life-ending medication has moved faster than in other states with similar laws, though major health care providers in the state won’t allow so-called “death with dignity” until at least January. Maine is now one of nine states to allow people to adopt such a law after it was passed by the Democratic-led Legislature earlier this year and signed into law by Gov. Janet Mills in June. Adults with a terminal illness who are deemed mentally competent can request life-ending medication from a doctor, who can choose to fill the prescription...

It can’t be said too often that too often we know too little about history–and what we do know often is either wrong or incomplete.  Over the years we’ve posted many stories that buttress and support what remains to many, many people an unknown historical truth–the Nazis “refined” their murderous system with their notorious Aktion T-4 euthanasia program.As Peter Saunders has so eloquently written, “The horrific genocide of six million Jews was in fact only the final chapter in the Nazi holocaust story.”  Beginning in 1939, 300,000 disabled people “were gassed or given a lethal injection and cremated in six...

The silent takeover avoids legal challengesHALIFAX, Nova Scotia (ChurchMilitant.com) - Nova Scotia is quietly forcing a Catholic hospital in the province to help patients kill themselves. Formerly run by the Sisters of St. Martha, St. Martha's Regional Hospital in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, is being told by the province that it must now offer patients access to physician-assisted suicide (PAS). The Catholic hospital was formerly exempt from Canada's pro-death legislation as per a 1996 agreement when it signed over control of its hospital to the province. The agreement ensuring the hospital's Catholic identity and values would be honored was negated last...

A teacher who threw his terminally ill 79-year-old mother to her death from a first-floor balcony spared jail as judge describes it as a "mercy killing". A "devoted, loving son" who killed his dying mother to end her suffering by dropping her from a first floor fire escape at a care home has been given a suspended jail term. Robert Knight, 53, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his 79-year-old mother June at an earlier hearing at Basildon Crown Court. The languages teacher had denied murder and was cleared by a jury. ...

A Dutch court acquitted a doctor on Wednesday of all charges for the euthanasia of an elderly woman who suffered from dementia but may not have wanted to end her life when her life was taken. The landmark case received widespread media attention because prosecutors claim the doctor, who remains unnamed, did not properly consult her patient before injecting her with a lethal dose of drugs. The unnamed 74-year-old patient was given a sedative in her coffee and had to be restrained by her husband and daughter as the doctor injected her with the deadly drugs. "We conclude that all...

<p>The well-known platitude "but for the grace of God go I" played in my brain while reading the tragic story of a disabled Canadian father who chose to end his own life, leaving behind an 11-year-old son. It would be easy to judge Sean Tagert, who was diagnosed with ALS six years ago. Do I believe he made the wrong choice? Sure. But I wasn't the one who was struggling to pay for my health care after losing my ability to breath on my own or feed myself. I'm not the one living under Canada's health care system that was more than happy to pay for my suicide but not the care I needed. So, yes, I disagree with Tagert's "choice" and mourn the loss of his life, but I blame Canada and their "touted" socialized medicine.</p>

[Catholic Caucus] Catholic outcry spurs Vatican life academy to remove pro-euthanasia member July 19, 2019 (LifeSiteNews.com) — The Pontifical Academy of life (PAL), the Vatican’s advisory board regarding the values of life and family, has announced the removal of a Portuguese bioethicist from its membership because of his views on “end of life” issues, an apparent reference to his endorsement of euthanasia for those with terminal illnesses. The decision to remove Professor Rui Nunes, president of the Portuguese Association for Bioethics, represents a deviation from the direction of the PAL under the leadership of Pope Francis and Archbishop Vincenzo...

July 11, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Vincent Lambert, the disabled man a court ordered to be starved to death in a French hospital, died this morning. After nine days without food and fluids, showing a remarkable will to live despite the cruel death of thirst that doctors had prepared for him, France’s Terri Schiavo departed from this earthly life at 8:24 a.m. on Thursday, July 11. He died of heart failure induced by the malfunction of his kidneys in Reims University Hospital in the room where he had been kept under lock and key for the last six years. Minutes after...

Long before President Donald Trump exposed media corruption by popularizing the term “fake news,” my family was subjected to a battle of deceptive reporting about my sister, Terri Schiavo. One-sided “journalism” continues today, as demonstrated by a recent Tampa Bay Times article titled, “Inside the Terri Schiavo case: Pinellas judge who decided her fate opens up,” by Leonora LaPeter Anton. Ms. Anton writes about Judge George Greer of Pinellas County Florida Circuit Court, who ruled that Terri’s estranged husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, could remove her food and water (via feeding tube). Greer’s decision was enforced on March 18,...