Here is a link to a Reuters story on the oral argument before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. The Court is considering whether there is a state constitutional right to assisted suicide. In 1997, the US Supreme Court rejected a federal constitutional challenge to laws banning assisted suicide.
Category: Suicide
Here is a link to a good essay by Professor Thomas Cavanaugh. The essay was published in Public Discourse. Cavanaugh’s essay explores the great danger of the use of euphemisms in the assisted suicide debate. He concludes with these thoughts: “we should “not be afraid of words that speak the truth.” Rather, we should find […]
A June 7, 2019 email from Not Dead Yet, titled “An Open Letter to Maine Governor Mills: Veto Assisted Suicide Law LD 1313”, contained a pdf commentary on assisted suicide abuses which will interest all pro-lifers. Please see “Some Oregon and Washington State Assisted Suicide Abuses and Complications”, which can be found here: https://dredf.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Revised-OR-WA-Abuses.pdf.
Here is a link to the June 30, 2016 decision by the New Mexico Supreme Court upholding the state’s ban on assisted suicide. A trial court judge in New Mexico had found the law unconstitutional. By a divided vote, the court of appeals reversed and the New Mexico Supreme Court has now also rejected the trial judge’s decision. […]
Here is a link to a post by Wesley Smith discussing the efforts of disability rights organizations to oppose the assisted suicide initiative in Massachusetts. Smith notes: “Media like to portray assisted suicide opponents as primarily religious or pro life. But the facts don’t fit that supposed story. Disability rights advocates–who are mostly politically liberal […]
Here is a link to Wesley Smith’s insighful commentary on the recently issued report in the UK from the Commission on Assisted Dying. http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2012/01/04/uk-pro-assisted-suicide-report-pushes-a-pentimento/ Smith concludes that this report is further evidence that England “is undergoing a tragic slow motion moral collapse.” Richard M.
Legalized PAS and the Werther Effect Evidence suggests that legalized PAS will result in a greater number of suicides more generally (and not simply amongst the population who opt for legalized PAS). We will have great difficulty, on the one hand, giving our and medicine’s approval to suicide as the solution to complex problems at […]
SSRN has posted a new article, Justins v. the Queen: Assisted Suicide, Juries and the Discretion to Prosecute examining an Australian case and arguing that prosecutors should very rarely charge defendants in cases of assisted suicide. The author notes that the British Crown Prosecution Service has developed guidelines for prosecutors regarding such charges. The guidelines […]
SSRN lists a new article entitled “The Sociology of Suicide.” The authors’ abstract describes the paper: Since Durkheim’s classic work on suicide, sociological attention to understanding the roots of self-destruction has been inconsistent. In this review, we use three historical periods of interest (pre-Durkheim, Durkheim, post-Durkheim) to organize basic findings in the body of sociological […]