I was in Australia when the Final Exit Network put up their pro assisted suicide billboards. I responded to the event in some interviews, but felt it appropriate to weigh in with a more detailed analysis. It appears today in To The Source. I begin by describing the two tracks of assisted suicide advocacy–the “moral outlaws” and the “professional advocates.” From my column:
FEN-style moral outlawry is nothing new, of course. In the 1990s, Jack Kevorkian plowed this particular field until convicted of second degree murder. (Proving that crime pays: Kevorkian has retired from his deadly avocation and receives $50,000 per speech, as he basks in the warm light of a sympathetic biopic starring AL Pacino. Kevorkian’s Australian counterpart, physician Philip Nitschke, still travels the world teaching people how-to-commit suicide as he attempts to touts a suicide concoction called “the peaceful pill,” which he opined in a National Review Online interview, should be made available to anyone who wants to die, including “troubled teens.”
As outrageous as the FEN, Kevorkian, and Nitschke are, they do not pose the primary threat. In the last ten years, a new class of advocates has emerged pursuing a “professional” approach to assisted suicide promotion. Epitomized by the euphemistically named Compassion and Choices and funded in the millions annually by the likes of George Soros, well off and well tailored elites promote a so-called “medical model” for legalized “aid in dying” in meetings with medical and legal associations, in articles published in professional journals, and ubiquitously to the media. To assuage fears of abuse, unlike the moral outlaws, assisted suicide professionals assure a wary public that doctor facilitated suicide will be restricted to the terminally ill for whom nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering—a false premise designed to play into people’s worst fears about the dying process.
I point out next that both schools of advocacy take us to the same dark and abandoning place:
After all, if the time, manner, and place of “my death” is merely a matter of “my choice,” simple logic dictates that “the right to die” will expand beyond the terminally ill—and as we shall see, even beyond “choice.” A brief review of the jurisdictions where euthanasia and assisted suicide are allowed illustrate the truth of the above assertion.
I go through the “slippery slope” experiences of the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Oregon–including links as proof texts. I conclude:
All of this—and much, much more that could be written—demonstrates vividly that the assisted suicide movement is a clear and present danger to the lives of the weak, vulnerable, and despairing. Indeed, lurking beneath the loud assertions of “My life, my death, my choice,” lurks an ideology that would lead us toward for profit suicide clinics—already proposed in Oregon —and a virtual death on demand social ethic. That is the ugly truth that simplistic billboard sloganeering just can’t hide.
No one can say that what I reported about assisted suicide/euthanasia where it is legal isn’t true. One can say they don’t care, of course. But few assisted suicide leaders will be that candid. Doing so would open the door to an honest debate about whether we should allow death on demand. And in my experience, such an honest debate is the last thing assisted suicide activists really want.
August 5th, 2010 | 7:22 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, Stand In The Gap. Stand In The Gap said: BIOETHICS WATCH => My Take On, “My Life, My Death, My Choice” FEN Billboards http://dlvr.it/3RpmL #912 #ocra #ucot #rs #tcot #tlot #sgp [...]
August 5th, 2010 | 7:23 pm
Wes,
I’ve been thinking about the confluence of a couple issues – Animal Rights and legalized euthanasia. AR holds that there is no moral distinction between humans and (other) animals.
If we allow suicide/euthanasia to alleviate human suffering, and even to avoid future suffering, and if we euthanize animals that are suffering, if we euthanize animals that are ‘extra’, such as stray (homeless) dogs and cats, then how long will it be before we euthanize homeless humans on “humanitarian” grounds?
The Oregon argument (economics of supporting the terminally ill are as difficult as supporting the homeless) fits conveniently here.
The world is a scary place. (But I don’t want the easy way out)
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Steve Colby: We euthanize animals that are incontinent. We euthanize animals because we don’t want to pay the cost of the care that could keep them from suffering. Etc. Etc. Etc. If we equate the two, you are right, the most weak and vulnerable among us will be in big trouble.
August 5th, 2010 | 7:43 pm
[...] First Things (blog) [...]
August 6th, 2010 | 2:58 am
Probably the scariest part of your post, Wesley, is your statement that “doctor” Phillip Nitschke, advocates assisted suicide for troubled teens.
The teen years are troubling, under the best of circumstances, but if one adds mental illness, on top, I cannot think of anything more irresponsible, than a “doctor”, claiming that these teens should be helped to die.
August 6th, 2010 | 7:57 am
” … funded in the millions annually by the likes of George Soros, well off and well tailored elites…”
More propaganda: note the use of the terms “well-tailored elites” used to distinguish between “us” (just plain folks) and “them” (well-off and well-tailored rich people who — God forbid — aren’t conservatives).
“The likes of George Soros” is a term that’s bound to ring bells among the weak-minded , who hear it regularly from your fellow propagandists: Steve Ertelt, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer et al.
Good work Wesley. You’ll be proud to know I’ve incorporated some of your stuff into a lecture I’m giving next week on American propaganda and propagandists.
August 6th, 2010 | 2:42 pm
Interesting post and I agree with you, but have always been troubled with the use of ‘slippery slope’ arguments. Many things we do *could* lead to some terrible outcome “down the slope”, but this does not necessarily stop us from doing it. Could you articulate for me what is wrong with a particular person with a late stage terminal disease ending their life on their own terms. This person probably doesn’t care a lick about what might happen in society 20 years from now. I ask only because I am very much opposed to it (euthanasia), but not quite sure what the argument is absent the slippery slope and appeals to faith.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 6th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
The issue Scott, isn’t suicide, it is assisted suicide. That brings in a radical new dimension of privatized killing. Also, how do we react to a suicidal desire? If you say because someone has cancer we will facilitate, but if they are mentally ill or have had a divorce, you are saying quite vividly that the value of the life of the non cancer patient is worth protecting, but not the life of the cancer patient. Human equality and protecting the vulnerable is at stake. And it isn’t a slippery slope argument. These are FACTS that repeat again and again. Ignoring that is irrational.
August 6th, 2010 | 6:21 pm
@HistoryWriter: Delighted to hear you’re doing a bit on propaganda. By all means, be certain to include Soros in your chat. Soros and the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation funded something called the Project on Death in America and, in it, made clear that a “new attitude” about dying was to be their major “point of communication.”
Ain’t like your side of the debate is angelic, bro.
And since we’re talking about propaganda, do note that when people are polled about catastrophic disabilities, old age and chronic illnesses, the numero uno stress point for them is being “burdens” to their families.
Do you seriously believe any adult child would whip out the word “burden” to their mother or father? Or – was it the pro-euthanasia, pro-assisted-suicide crowd who flung that negative word around like beads at Mardi Gras?
The pro-death lobby is like a bunch of ear-whigs and I tip my hat to them for being the wickedly smart and effective marketeers that they are. The problem is… their product sucks.
August 6th, 2010 | 7:14 pm
Gee, why am I not surprised that George Soros is behind “Compassion and Choices”?
The man is demonically OBSESSED with radical population reduction.
http://www.beyondleftright.com/topics/globalization-a-nwo/743-abc-a-london-times-report-on-elites-meetin-about-population-control
August 6th, 2010 | 10:06 pm
Hey, HW-when you do that speech on propogandists, be sure to include a section on yourself.
August 7th, 2010 | 12:29 am
All consenting adults have a right to suicide in any moral society. Arguments that try to pretend otherwise are just mendacious nannyism.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 7th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Godfrey: Than make that the argument rather than the “restricted to the terminally ill,” nonsense.
August 7th, 2010 | 9:42 am
safepres: I wish I could, but unlike Wesley I’m neither (a) qualified as a propagandist, nor (b) shamelessly into self-promotion.
I rather think of myself as an art critic — as someone who knows propagandist BS when he smells it, just like someone who knows that paint-by-numbers-on-black-velvet pictures of Elvis Presley aren’t great art. Think of me as a guy who pulls the curtain aside and points out how the Wiz is tricking you.
August 20th, 2010 | 7:05 am
[...] Well, it seems the pro-euthanasia crowd is now making this into a slogan for billboards and Wesley Smith takes them to task. Here is the post in full from his blog because it is so good: I was in [...]
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