Maryland Assisted Suicide Bill Fails After Dramatic Tie Vote

A bill to legalize assisted suicide in Maryland went down to the narrowest of defeats in the state Senate this week. As Lisa Hudson covered earlier this week, the “End of Life Option Act” had stalled out in committee in the Maryland legislature since it was first introduced in 2015. But an expanded Democrat majority in the House managed to pass the bill out of committee this year and bring it to the floor. Much of the opposition came from Democrat legislators representing predominantly black districts who did not want to presume to play God. Allied with them was the

Assisted Suicide Laws Pick Up Support in More States

It was bound to happen. Abortion supporters have made babies fair game for nearly half of a century — the original disposal of the unwanted, the burdensome, the parasite, the financial headache. For the last 46 years, the rights of the unborn have been whittled away, until, as we’ve seen recently, the most heinous expansion since Roe v. Wade became law. It’s not surprising, then, to see the concept of the unwanted, the burdensome, and the financially draining expanded to another of our most vulnerable populations: the elderly and the infirm. Just as abortion supporters have championed a mother’s right

Whose Children? Challenges to Parental Rights Multiply

Earlier this month, New Jersey became the latest state to institute a policy threatening parental rights — adding to a growing nationwide hostility to the already fragile institution of the family. The New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) recently amended their existing anti-discrimination policy with the “Transgender Student Guidance for School Districts.” The guidance, among other things, instructs schools to use the preferred pronouns and names of students without the permission, or even awareness, of students’ parents. In order to manage this policy, schools are keeping two separate files for students: one with students’ birth names and genders which parents

Are Food and Water No Longer “Basic Care”? A Disturbing New Trend in Medicine

Bobby Schindler, brother of the late Terri Schiavo who was starved to death by a hospital under court order in 2005, says there is a legal reality that should send shivers down all our spines. According to Schindler, “it is presently legal in every state deliberately to bring about the end of a patient’s life by denying a nonterminal person food and water.” This is based on a precedent set by the Supreme Court in a 1986 case, where they declared that giving food and water to a patient is classified as “medical treatment” — not the most basic of necessities. Earlier

Democrats and Republicans Join Forces to Condemn Assisted Suicide

In these times of sharp party division in Congress, any bipartisan agreement warrants particular attention. One such bipartisan resolution introduced this week is especially noteworthy since it deals with a hot-button issue — the legalization of assisted suicide. H.Con.Res. 80, a resolution introduced on Tuesday, responds to recent attempts to legalize assisted suicide by bringing to light the consequences of so-called “death with dignity” bills. Its purpose is summarized as follows: Expressing the sense of the Congress that assisted suicide (sometimes referred to as death with dignity, end-of-life options, aid-in-dying, or similar phrases) puts everyone, including those most vulnerable, at

California Lawsuit Seeks to Decimate Hippocratic Oath

The recent death of 77-year-old Judy Dale has sparked controversy regarding California’s recently passed statute legalizing assisted suicide. Dale, a cancer patient, passed away from her illness at home last year after not receiving a prescription for lethal medication that she had allegedly requested for the entirety of her final hospitalization. After her passing, Dale’s children filed a lawsuit alleging elder abuse for her oncologists’ refusal to prescribe life-ending drugs on account of their mother’s pain. According to the San Francisco Chronicle: [The] lawsuit by her children will determine whether UCSF Medical Center, where Dale first went for treatment, was

POLL: 48 Percent of Americans Believe Abortion Is Morally Wrong

A Gallup poll released yesterday analyzing data from the past four years shows that nearly half of Americans, many of whom think abortion should be legal at least in some cases, nevertheless believe that abortion is morally wrong. The poll also found the same phenomenon on a number of other controversial issues, with many respondents believing certain activities, though immoral, should not be illegal: Americans are often more likely to view behaviors as morally wrong than they are to advocate that these behaviors be made illegal. This underscores a general tendency for Americans to hesitate before deciding that banning an

University of Chicago Professor: If Abortion Is Allowed, Why Not Infanticide?

Jerry Coyne, a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, has taken the arguments for abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide to the next level ― defending the infanticide of sick babies. “Should one be allowed to euthanize severely deformed or doomed newborns?,” the first of a pair of blog posts, received so much attention that Coyne wrote a follow-up article responding to critics yesterday. Both articles refer to the arguments of notorious Princeton University “moral” philosopher Peter Singer, who has previously made the case for infanticide: The question of whether one should be able

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