Free Republic

The founder of Dignitas, a controversial assisted suicide organization, ended his own life at age 92, the group announced Monday. It’s a tragic irony that underscores the dehumanizing consequences of the deadly practice. Ludwig Minelli, a former journalist and human rights lawyer, died November 29 through what Dignitas described as “voluntary assisted dying,” just days before his 93rd birthday on December 5. The Zurich-based death group, which Minelli established in 1998 to enable people to end their lives “on their own terms,” provided no further details about the circumstances of his death. Dignitas, one of Switzerland’s most prominent suicide killers,...

German police have opened up an investigation into the death of variety show stars and twin sisters Alice and Ellen Kessler, who shot to fame in the 1950s. According the the German news agency dpa, the pair were found on Monday in the home they shared in Grünwald, a prosperous suburb of Munich. They were 89

A lady who wrote to a financial advice column detailing her financial struggles in accessing healthcare has been told about how easy it is to access assisted suicide, which would mean she “wouldn’t need to worry”. Writing to MarketWatch’s financial advice column, a woman in her sixties detailed how she was concerned about being unable to access Medicaid, a government health insurance programme in the United States, unless she sells off her assets. “It also goes against my principles to dispose of my assets just so the government will support me”, she said. As age and life experiences have left...

Scott Adams, the influential author, cartoonist, and pundit, revealed Monday that he is suffering from metastasized prostate cancer — the same diagnosis President Joe Biden reported the day before. “I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has,” Adams said. “I also have prostate cancer that has also spread to my bones.” “My life expectancy is maybe this summer,” he said. He said that he was considering ending his own life, as California law allows, using self-administered drugs. “I’m in pain,” he said, “I’m always in pain.” He said he had come to terms with his condition. “It’s kind of...

Walls was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer in 2023Aussie rules legend Robert Walls has died aged 74 after using voluntary assisted dying laws. Walls won three premiership titles with Carlton Football Club as a player and a coach. He was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer, named acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, in 2023. The Age reports that Walls decided not to go through another round of chemotherapy after being told he had months to live earlier this year. “Having battled cancer for more than two years, Robert did it his way and...

Proposed laws to give terminally ill adults on the Isle of Man the right to choose to end their own lives have been agreed by the Manx parliament. It means the bill can now be sent for Royal Assent, making it the first parliament in the British Isles to take this step. Under the provisions in the Assisted Dying Bill 2023, adults with a prognosis of 12 months or less to live would be given the right to choose to die. Those eligible would have to be over the age of 18, and have lived on the island for five...

A dangerous new bill introduced in the Oregon legislature would lower guardrails to obtain assisted suicide prescriptions, putting medically vulnerable people at risk in Oregon and across the country. Senate Bill 1003, introduced during Oregon’s 83rd legislative session, would modify existing terminology in Oregon’s “Death With Dignity” law to allow physician assistants and nurse practitioners, rather than exclusively physicians, to prescribe lethal drugs to end the lives of people diagnosed with a terminal illness. The bill would expand access to legal assisted suicide, which has already skyrocketed in recent years as a cause of death for Oregonians and out-of-state residents....

Assisted dying cases would no longer have to be signed off by the High Court under changes suggested by the bill's supporters. The proposed law currently says a High Court judge must check each person is eligible and has not been coerced into making the decision to die. But BBC News has been told Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP behind the bill, will suggest replacing this with a panel of experts who would oversee applications. It comes after concerns were raised over the court's capacity to hear each individual case.

A federal judge on Wednesday agreed with Gov. Andrew Cuomo's statement that pro-lifers “have no place” in New York.The judge then moved to make that recommendation a legal reality.The Washington Examiner reported that a federal judge struck down a Trump administration rule that would have allowed for healthcare workers to refuse to provide or refer to sterilizations, abortions, and medically assisted suicide if doing so violated their faith.

Canadian doctors, having accepted the country’s assisted-suicide regime, are now considering whether to harvest organs from euthanasia patients before they have died, The Federalist reported Wednesday. The doctors reason thus: Organs are normally removed from a donor as soon as possible after death to ensure they are in the best possible condition for transplant. If organs were removed from a live person, they would be in even better condition. And if that patient is about to die voluntarily anyway, what’s the harm in killing him by taking his organs? Stealing Hearts “The best use of my organs, if I’m going...

The doctor behind the so-called Sarco “death pod” has said he will bring his invention to Britain if assisted dying is made legal. Dr Philip Nitschke, 77, has said he is ready to launch in Britain a 3D-printed portable machine that floods with nitrogen gas at the press of a button, should Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying Bill become law. The Private Member’s Bill is due for its second reading in the House of Commons at the end of next week.

The last time MPs voted on the question of assisted dying - nearly three quarters were against it. Nine years later - polling suggests two thirds of the country would back a change in the law. That ratio is mirrored in the number of cabinet ministers who've so far publicly declared their position, with 10 for and five against (only nine have obeyed the instruction from Cabinet Secretary Simon Case not to get involved). But the bill's cabinet opponents have made some of the most high-profile interventions in the debate. Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood are...

(Reports show that in Ontario alone there were 428 possible criminal cases related to Canada’s assisted suicide program since 2018.) In Canada, doctors can treat their patients with an unusual medicine: death. While the nation claims its doctors meet “certain safeguards” before killing their patients under the label “euthanasia,” new documents show more than 428 possible criminal cases in the province of Ontario alone, according to The New Atlantis. This includes repeat and “blatant” offenders. Canada’s criminal code regulates the “medical assistance in dying” program, or “MAID.” Still, many of its doctors have been killing patients whose deaths could have...

While abortion dominated the ballot measure landscape, pro-life Americans won another victory in West Virginia. West Virginians narrowly approved a constitutional amendment to explicitly prohibit killing patients and elderly people in assisted suicide. Voters approved the measure on a narrow 50.5-49.5 margin, but enough for a pro-life victory. The explanation provided on ballots was that “The purpose of this amendment is to protect West Virginians against medically-assisted suicide.” The amendment would add a section to the state Constitution to say, “No person, physician, or health care provider in the State of West Virginia shall participate in the practice of medically...

WEIRTON — Two weeks before the Nov. 5 election, one local legislator is speaking on why he feels it is important for West Virginia voters to approve Amendment 1. If approved by voters, Amendment 1, also known as the Protection of Persons Against Medically Assisted Suicide amendment, would modify the West Virginia Constitution to include prohibitions of medically assisted suicide procedures being performed in the state. Such change, if enacted, would be listed under Article III, Section 23 of the Constitution. Medically assisted suicide currently is not legal under West Virginia law, but Del. Pat McGeehan, R-Hancock, said passage of...

A woman undergoing life-saving cancer surgery in Canada was offered assisted suicide by doctors as she was about to enter the operating room. The case comes as the number of people opting to end their lives under the country’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) program has risen thirteen-fold from 1,018 to 13,241 in 2022. Assisted dying, which was legalised in Canada in 2016, is now the fifth-leading cause of death in the country. The case will sound alarm bells in the UK, where a bill on assisted dying is set to be brought forward in parliament this month. If it...

A 64-year-old US woman this week became the first person to use a “suicide pod” to end her life — and several people have been detained in Switzerland over the death. The woman, a Midwesterner who was not named publicly, died Monday afternoon in the portable, 3D-printed chamber called a Sarco, short for “sarcophagus” — and dubbed the “Tesla of euthanasia” — near the Swiss-German border, according to the assisted-suicide group Exit International. The woman suffered from “severe immune compromise,” the group said. Switzerland is one of the few countries where foreigners can travel to legally end their lives through...

Delaware Democratic Governor John Carney vetoed a bill Friday that would have legalized assisted suicide in the state. Lawmakers passed HB 140 in June. The bill would have allowed a terminally ill adult to self-administer lethal drugs (assisted suicide) with the approval of two physicians or APRNs. Carney released a statement following his veto, in which he called assisted death a “deeply personal issue” but said that he is “fundamentally opposed” to suicide. “I still don’t believe a firm consensus has been reached on what is a very difficult issue – in Delaware or nationally,” he wrote. “Last year, the...

In a chilling display of disregard for the sanctity of life, Switzerland has introduced an ‘assisted suicide pod’, akin to a vending machine. This device allows individuals to end their lives at the mere ‘push of a button’. The portable death ‘pod’ has received approval from the Swiss government and is expected to claim its first victim this year. Florian Willet, CEO of the pro-euthanasia organization The Last Resort, announced this disturbing development during a press conference. Willet confirmed that Switzerland will ‘soon’ begin euthanizing citizens using this macabre machine.According to Willet, there are already people lined up, eagerly waiting...

In a roller coaster ride of votes, the Delaware Senate passed assisted suicide Bill HB 140 on June 25 by an 11 to 10 vote in a second vote on the bill. On June 20 I reported that the Delaware Senate defeated the assisted suicide Bill HB 140 by a 9 to 9 vote. I thanked the many Delaware citizens who worked to defeat the bill. The June 25 vote was based on all 6 Senate republicans voting No along with 4 Senate Democrats. Eleven members of the Delaware Senate voted to legalize medical killing even after an assisted suicide...