If you have an organ transplant in Belgium, there is a small chance that you will owe your life to someone else’s death by euthanasia. The complex job of matching donors and recipients in Belgium — where euthanasia has been legal since 2002 — is handled by an organisation called Eurotransplant. In 2008, in a … Read more
“I killed my brother. But it wasn’t murder. I did what I had to, to stop his pain.” — Dr. Remy “Thirteen” Hadley, House “Can you not read the signs of the times?” Perhaps Christ’s most ominous warning, it echoes down the centuries as an admonishment to every generation of believers. Why are we always … Read more
As health care costs continue to rise and a growing number of Baby Boomers approach old age, end-of-life issues are looming larger than ever in the public debate. What is “the right to die”? How should we, as a society, approach questions of health care, treatment for the elderly, and euthanasia? The Patients Rights Council, … Read more
Over at First Things, David Mills tells the poignant story of his father’s death — one that, by any modern standard, would have been considered humiliating and undignified. It wasn’t pretty, Mills admits, but he says that his father’s willing acceptance of his circumstances was more “dignified” than any easy way out: This is what … Read more
Well, you don’t often get pro-life pieces at the Huffington Post. Though to be honest, the piece I found isn’t explicitly pro-life. In fact, it doesn’t mention abortion or euthanasia at all. But the ideas he expressed are thoroughly pro-life (though I’d predict the author would deny the connection). Writer Bryan Young, nominally Catholic, recently … Read more
Good morning! Time for your Friday links: Holland proposes extending the option of euthanasia to healthy people over 70 who simply “consider their lives complete” and want to end it. ‘How I found God and peace with my atheist brother’: Peter Hitchens discusses his truce with brother Christopher after 50 years. How will the world … Read more
On my most recent visit to Amsterdam for the World Congress of Families (WCF), I was once again struck by the remarkable façade of peaceful, tolerant prosperity the Dutch maintain. Although its famous openness to lust and license is ever more apparent, Amsterdam’s charm remains in its tidy homes, shops, museums, and beautiful (though empty) … Read more
So here we are again, with another discussion about Catholics and the royal family. We have been here before, each time some royal falls in love with a Catholic, or even when royal marriages in general are discussed. This time it’s a bit different: There is no specific royal eyeing the aisle with … Read more
In his first book, The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru fills a gap, providing the first general overview of life issues written for a popular audience in the last 20 years. It’s a badly needed effort, for the situation has … Read more
The intense battle to prevent Terri Schiavo’s husband from removing her feeding tube was horrible enough. To think that some American Catholic universities — and their ethics, theology, law, and medical professors — bear some responsibility for Schiavo’s slow death is almost too much to imagine. Yet prior to Schiavo’s death, professors from top Catholic … Read more