September 26, 2007

Euthanasia-Assisted Suicide

Vic began this edition of Crosstalk with an update on the Miller Brewing Company sponsorship of the Folsom Street Fair billboard in California.

Wesley Smith is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. He's helped author and coauthor numerous books dealing with the topics of euthanasia, assisted suicide and bioethics.

The euthanasia/assisted suicide crowd operates under two ideological pillars. The first is the so-called civil right of radical individualism which says that you have the right to choose the time, manner and place of your death. The second pillar is that suicide/euthanasia/killing is an acceptable answer to the problem of human suffering

Smith notes that if we accept these pillars, then what does someone being terminally ill have to do with it? Some people suffer far more extensively for a far longer period than dying people. So if you say that one category of suffering people can kill themselves or get help in doing so, then why can't this other group that suffers even more?

Is this the kind of life philosophy America should embrace, especially with the political "drum beating" going on for national health care? In other words, if taxpayers end up paying the tab for patients to lay in hospital beds, could it be that the right to die may someday turn into a responsibility to die?

These and other important life choice questions are examined on this edition of Crosstalk.

More Information

http://www.wesleyjsmith.com
http://www.internationaltaskforce.org