Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide & End-of-Life Care

By Marie Tasy, Executive Director, New Jersey Right to Life NJRTL’s column examines NJ.com’s recent three-part investigative series on New Jersey’s assisted suicide law and the serious questions it raises about medical ethics, accountability, and the erosion of safeguards as physician assisted suicide becomes increasingly normalized. Originally published by National Right to Life News Today, […]

There is an old joke: What do you call the medical student who finished last in his class? Answer: “Doctor.” The increasing legalization of assisted suicide has accorded that joke a disturbing pertinence. A doctor who prescribes poison need not be an excellent medical practitioner. He or she need not specialize in treating patients who present with particular life-threatening conditions, and indeed, can prescribe even if never treating the patient’s underlying condition at all. For example, Jack Kevorkian was a pathologist who never treated a living patient after medical school. But if assiste

Serious moves are afoot to allow ending the lives of dementia patients, either by allowing them to be killed by lethal jab euthanasia if requested in a written advance directive (where legal), or to allow a document to be signed requiring caregivers to withhold sufficient food and water to sustain life. New Jersey seems to move subtly in the latter direction with a vaguely worded bill, S.B. 4186, that could open the door to intentional legal undernourishment. From the bill: It is the public policy of this State to respect the dignity, autonomy, and previously expressed wishes of individuals li

Residency requirement to remain in New Jersey’s assisted suicide law, judge rules

For some it may be unthinkable at any time of the year, let alone during the holiday season, that there is a cadre of relentless professional assisted suicide advocacy organizations seeking more efficient ways for people with disabilities to kill themselves during this national moment when Medicare, SNAP, and “streamlined” federal departments (i.e. HUD ) […]