Wesley J. Smith is considered one of America's top bioethical thinkers. I agree with that assessment. For many years he has been warning America, and the world, about the dangers of assisted suicide and euthanasia to the seriously ill and severely disabled. His warnings are coming true just as he predicted in his writings, speeches and books like FORCED EXIT: THE SLIPPERY SLOPE FROM ASSISTED SUICIDE TO LEGALIZED MURDER, first published in 1997 and revised in 2003. Former United States Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop said this about Wesley's FORCED EXIT:
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| C. Everett Koop |
"Society will rue the day it permits doctors to be killers as well as healers. Wesley J. Smith offers a compelling argument legalizing assisted suicide and clearly explains the devastating effects it will have on an unwary public. Smith has done us all a great service with this important primer."
Dr. Chris Simpson, the new president of the Canadian Medical Association, should have taken FORCED EXIT under advisement before making his odious comments that doctor assisted death can be appropriate after other options are exhausted. (See my previous blog.)
We see this in language, such as calling people vegetables. It's as derogatory as calling blacks the "N" word. In fact, I remember hearing that someone predicted my degenerative multiple sclerosis would leave me a vegetable. (I'm still waiting for my grey hair to turn to a leafy top.)
On September 2nd 2014, Wesley J. Smith wrote about the term "vegetable" used to describe profoundly disabled or comatose people in an article for the National Review. See "Taking pride in V-word "Unrepentant Bigotry"" http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/386861/taking-pride-v-word-unrepentant-bigotry-wesley-j-smith
Let's give respect and dignity to everybody, even to profoundly disabled or dying people. Calling them names or killing them is not respect.Mark
Thanks for the very kind words, Mark. But you are the real deal!
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