Free Republic

When I was a teenager I was extremely lucky, landing in the middle of a cultural and social revolution. Driving into assembly on the back of a motorbike, having a fling with an unsuspecting English teacher and being desperate to get myself laid at 15 gave me immediate membership to the only club worth joining - the club that was 'the 60s'. Apart from occasional doses of teenage angst, I was what you might call very, ‘alive and kicking’; anything I could kick against, I did. And therein lays the problem - the one about being alive. Consider the figures...

If you want to see where our culture may next go off the rails, read professional journals. There, in often eye-crossing and passive arcane prose of the medical intelligentsia, you will discover an astonishing level of antipathy to the sanctity of human life — to the point now that some advocate killing the profoundly disabled for their organs.Case in point: “What Makes Killing Wrong?” an article published in the January 19, 2012 edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics. The authors argue that death and total disability are morally indistinguishable, and therefore harvesting organs from living disabled patients is not...

February 8, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The conundrum faced by the organ transplant industry, that the removal of vital organs kills the “donor,” can be “easily obviated by abandoning the norm against killing,” two leading U.S. bioethicists have said. In an article titled, “What Makes Killing Wrong?” appearing in last month’s Journal of Medical Ethics, the authors have moved the argument forward by admitting that the practice of vital organ donation ignores “traditional” medical ethics. “Traditional medical ethics embraces the norm that doctors … must not kill their patients. This norm is often seen as absolute and universal. In contrast, we...

February 8, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The conundrum faced by the organ transplant industry, that the removal of vital organs kills the “donor,” can be “easily obviated by abandoning the norm against killing,” two leading U.S. bioethicists have said. In an article titled, “What Makes Killing Wrong?” appearing in last month’s Journal of Medical Ethics, the authors have moved the argument forward by admitting that the practice of vital organ donation ignores “traditional” medical ethics. “Traditional medical ethics embraces the norm that doctors … must not kill their patients. This norm is often seen as absolute and universal. In contrast, we...

February 8, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Netherlands Right-to-Die Association (NVVE) has announced that it will soon fulfill a promise made last year to open a private euthanasia “clinic” that offers door-to-door service, for people who can’t convince their regular doctor to kill them. According to reports in the Spanish and Portuguese-language press, the clinic will serve clients who wish to end their lives, but have been refused help from doctors for “ethical” reasons. A report by Radio Netherlands says that the organization has mentioned patients who are “in the early stages of dementia and those suffering from chronic psychiatric problems.”...

The world’s first euthanasia film festival is being held in Amsterdam, sponsored by the Dutch Right to Die lobby (NVVE). This week, from February 6 to 12 is a "Week of Euthanasia" in the Netherlands, a celebration of a decade of euthanasia and assisted suicide. They were legalised on April 1, 2002. More than 35 old and new films and documentaries, from all over the world, from Hollywood to Bollywood are to be screened. They include Million Dollar Baby, Mar Adentro, The Barabarian Invasions, Las Buenas Hierbas, Igby goes down, Whose Life is it Anyway? and The Suicide Tourist. There...

“Passive eugenicide allowed babies deemed “defective” to starve, or be denied medical attention.” The “Unfit” defined: Eugenics as an instrument of race improvement was inspired by animal husbandry that improved livestock through selective breeding, and culling undesirables from breeding stock. Eugenics sought to apply the principle to human breeding. Eugenics “ideal” for America’s racial stock was the Nordic blue-eyed, blond-haired Aryan. The “unfit” included the “feeble minded,” homosexuals; persons evidencing criminal traits, alcoholism, blindness, deafness, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and a wide range of “mental illnesses.” To eugenicists even “laziness” was understood as a genetic trait to be eliminated from the...

  Disrespect for the Disabled + ObamaCare = ? David C. Stolinsky Feb. 2, 2012 Recently the Los Angeles Times devoted two entire columns to the misuse of disabled parking placards by people who appear not to be disabled. This makes the few spots reserved for the disabled even less available, a real problem. But the author’s chief complaint was the fact that the placards allow drivers to park at meters without paying or obeying time limits − thus depriving the city of money. Like a typical leftist, he saw the problem as economic. The author seemed to condemn...

BERLIN, January 27, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Berlin’s “Topography of Terror,” museum, which features exhibits on the murderous crimes of German police forces during the Nazi era, has begun a temporary display on the thousands of children euthanized during the same period as “life unworthy of life.” The exhibition, entitled “In memory of the children. Pediatricians and crimes against children in the Nazi period,” displays photos and documents related to various Nazi projects concerning the murder and torture of children, such as Action T4 and Lebensborn. While Action T4 focused on exterminating children who were physically or mentally handicapped, Lebensborn...

An 80 percent abortion rate of those with disabilities shows the need to restore a fundamental respect for human dignity in America, said Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia. He underscored that the plight of disabled babies highlights “a struggle within the American soul” that will shape the future of the nation. “These children with disabilities are not a burden; they’re a priceless gift to all of us,” the archbishop said. “They’re a doorway to the real meaning of our humanity.” Archbishop Chaput delivered the keynote address at the 13th annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life on Jan. 22. The...

Remember the Avis Rent-a-Car commercials from the 1960s? Maybe not. Anyhow, they tripled the company’s market share with the slogan, “Avis Is Only No. 2, We Try Harder.” The Belgian right-to-die lobby seems to have the same can-do attitude. In the journal Health Policy, researchers associated with the End-of-Life Care Research Group at Ghent University and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels have lamented the low take-up of the services of doctors specialising in facilitating euthanasia. A group called the Life End Information Forum (LEIF) was formed in 2002 in Belgium as soon as euthanasia was legalised. Since the new law required...

An experienced doctor who works with terminal patients has asked whether assisted suicide is just a cost-saving exercise. Dr Elizabeth A Burroughs, in a letter to a national newspaper, said: “Quality palliative care costs money; assisted suicide is a cheaper option. But how long would it be before pressure was being placed on the terminally ill to ‘do the decent thing’?” Dr Burroughs also commented: “In 30 years as a GP, I was asked by at most a handful of terminally ill patients to hasten their deaths." Care “In 17 years working in hospices I cannot recall ever having received...

Four patients are dying hungry and thirsty on hospital wards every day, shocking figures reveal. Dehydration or malnutrition directly caused or was linked to 1,316 deaths last year in NHS trusts and privately run hospitals. The revelation follows a series of damning reports accusing staff of failing to address the most basic needs of the vulnerable, particularly the elderly. Only this month David Cameron was forced to order nurses to carry out hourly spot checks of patients just to see whether they need help eating, drinking or going to the toilet.

Egbert, a slightly built, genial and energetic retired anesthesiologist with a snowy goatee, turns to his computer, his back to me, content to answer an e-mail while I sort through the pile. Once I finish untangling, I hold in my hands a curious plastic sack, about 21 inches long and 18 inches wide. A bunched white elastic strip, reminiscent of a garter, circles the mouth at the open end. A thick plastic tube runs into the sack, stretching 37 inches before branching into a T-shape with 12-inch arms extending from each side of the joint. Egbert calls it an “exit...

Brother testifies in favor of “Terri Schiavo Day” by Matt Lacy – Bobby Schindler, the brother of Terri Schiavo testified on Tuesday in support of a New Hampshire bill proclaiming March 31 of each year as a day to remember Terri Schiavo. Schiavo, who spent 15 years on a feeding tube, became a focal point over the right to die issue and highlighted the need for individuals to have a living will specifying their wishes.. On February 25, 1990 Schiavo collapsed while at home. After being admitted to the hospital, doctors were unable to determine an exact cause of...

Michael Nazir-Ali is Director of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy & Dialogue, and was formerly the Bishop of Rochester. Time and again, Parliament has refused to relax the law on assisted suicide.  Having failed there, attempts were made to get around the law by persuading the Director of Public Prosecution to revise guidelines about who might be prosecuted for helping a relative or a friend to end their life.  A relentless campaign has been kept up in the media inspite of the thinness of the medical, legal and moral arguments which are regularly brought up in support...

This time, the proponents of assisted suicide think they've got it right. Trapped in the nebulous area of trying to establish criteria for when assisted suicide should be allowed, without danger of being accused of sliding down that proverbial slippery slope, British advocates have come up with a proposal.They seem to think that this time, it's foolproof. It isn't.The U.K.'s Commission on Assisted Dying released a report of 400 pages this past week, authored by lawyers, doctors and an ex-police commissioner, which would allow for assisted suicide in people 18 or older, who are mentally competent and have a maximum...

TORONTO, Ontario, January 6, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Starting Friday, Canada’s largest national pro-life organization will send a powerful warning to households across the country about what could happen if the courts acquiesce to recent pleas for the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Campaign Life Coalition has launched a month-long national media campaign with 60-second TV ads running on the Sun News Network from Jan. 6-29.  It is expected to reach over 3.2 million viewers. Mary Ellen Douglas, CLC’s national organizer, said the campaign comes at a crucial time as there has been a renewed push to legalize euthanasia in...

Euthanasia is once again in the spotlight. The Carter case, now before the courts in B.C., seeks to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada. It’s a constitutional challenge which seeks to legalize these practices as medical treatment and to be regulated within provincial health-care regulations.On April 21, 2010, Canada’s parliament soundly defeated Bill C-384, which sought to amend the Criminal Code, allowing the right to die with dignity. It was a bad piece of legislation which, had it passed, would have directly threatened the lives of persons with disabilities.We won this battle. However, Canada’s right-to-die lobby aren’t giving up...

Dr. Alexander K. Smith is a brave man.It has taken physicians a very long time to accept the need to level with patients and their families when they have terminal illnesses and death is near — and we know that many times those kinds of honest, exploratory conversations still don’t take place.Now Dr. Smith, a palliative care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who also practices at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and two co-authors are urging another change, one they acknowledge would “radically alter” the way health care professionals communicate with their very old patients.In...