That’s what demonstrators were chanting outside a pro-euthanasia conference in Chicago last week (see video below).

Canadian anti-euthanasia activists traveled from Quebec to join U.S. groups like Not Dead Yet (NDY) and American Disabled for Attendant Programs (ADAPT) to protest for three days outside the World Federation of Right to Die Societies conference.

The director of the Canadian NDY chapter, Nic Steenhout, said, “there is no public consensus for euthanasia in Quebec, or in Canada . . . surveys show that people don’t understand that ‘aid in dying’ means giving lethal injections.”

The theme for this year’s conference was: Dignity. Control. Choices. Around the World.

For many, like us at the Center for Bioethics and Culture, who oppose euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide schemes, we know this isn’t about dignity, control, or choices. This is about a pro-death agenda that seeks to corrupt medicine and deny the most vulnerable, at their hour of need, the necessary medical, psychological, and spiritual care — comfort care and compassion– under the guise of a “right to die.”

Anthropologist Margaret Mead, writing about the Hippocratic Oath in 1961, warned, “Society is always attempting to make the physician into a killer — to kill the defective child at birth, to leave the sleeping pills beside the bed of the cancer patient . . . It is the duty of society to protect the physician from such requests.” We resoundingly agree!

President and CEO of NDY, Diane Coleman, warned that it appears California is targeted for another “right to die” battle. She ended one of her speeches affirming human dignity, the depth of need, and the plea for assistance and not euthanasia by saying:

We want assistance to live, not die.
We are not better off dead than disabled.
We don’t need to die to have dignity.
We are strong and proud, and we are
NOT DEAD YET!!

 

 

Post by Danny Saenz.

 

Author Profile

Jennifer Lahl, CBC Founder
Jennifer Lahl, CBC Founder
Jennifer Lahl, MA, BSN, RN, is founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Lahl couples her 25 years of experience as a pediatric critical care nurse, a hospital administrator, and a senior-level nursing manager with a deep passion to speak for those who have no voice. Lahl’s writings have appeared in various publications including Cambridge University Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the American Journal of Bioethics. As a field expert, she is routinely interviewed on radio and television including ABC, CBS, PBS, and NPR. She is also called upon to speak alongside lawmakers and members of the scientific community, even being invited to speak to members of the European Parliament in Brussels to address issues of egg trafficking; she has three times addressed the United Nations during the Commission on the Status of Women on egg and womb trafficking.