end of life

This Week in Bioethics #95

1. Jennifer in Washington State On Tuesday, Jennifer testified before the Washington State Senate’s Law & Justice Committee. They’re considering SB 6037, The Uniform Parentage Act, which would, among other things, legalize surrogacy in and encourage reproductive tourism to Washington State. In just over two minutes, Jennifer attempted to summarize the full scope of the […]

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Bioethics at the Oscars

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the big news coming out of the Academy Awards last night is the mixup regarding the Best Picture winner. Even without that, though, you probably wouldn’t have heard much about a nominated film that brought a bit of bioethics to the Oscars. Extremis, nominated for Best Documentary Short […]

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Update: D.C. Assisted Suicide Law

Update to the update: the law has gone into effect. The House did not vote on the measure to block it, and the Senate version never left committee (both chambers would have needed to vote to block the bill by Friday, February 17). The organization that spearheaded the campaign for this law released a statement […]

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Developing: Congressional Committee Moves to Block D.C. Assisted Suicide Law

The Washington Post reports that a House committee has voted to block Washington, D.C.’s assisted suicide law from going into effect. In order for the law to be blocked completely, however, the full House and Senate will have to vote, and will have to do so by Friday because of a 30-day oversight window. It is at […]

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2016 Winners and Losers

Each year at this time we look back over the past twelve months with an eye toward identifying those whose lives and work actively promoted and affirmed a truly human future, and those who did not. Winners: Stephanie Packer is more than a winner; she really is a hero. Sitting down with her while making […]

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Update: We Will Be Rescheduling This Event — Please Join Us for a Public Conversation on Depression, Hope, and Healing

UPDATE: Unfortunately, we will not be holding this event on January 20. We are working to reschedule it. Stay tuned to our website and social media channels. Thank you. The Center for Bioethics and Culture presents our third "Public Conversation" Live Event, with Dr. Aaron Kheriaty. Please join us on Friday, January 20! And pass this along […]

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To Be Human can be Really Hard

Last week I wrote about the Massachusetts Medical Society’s plans to survey their members, part of which involved a debate over the terms medical aid in dying” vs. “physician-assisted suicide.” As part of that discussion, one Massachusetts physician emphasized the need to highlight the growth and development of the field of palliative care in any […]

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Let’s Call it What it Is

The Boston Globe reports that the Massachusetts Medical Society is planning to conduct a survey of its 25,000 members in order to determine their perspectives on either “medical aid in dying” or “physician-assisted suicide.” Deciding what to call it seems to be one of the main sticking points. The doctors even disagreed about what words […]

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Physician-Assisted Death Destroys Medical Ethics

The editor-in-chief of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Lawrence Huntoon, M.D., Ph.D., addresses physician assisted suicide in the winter edition of the journal. His goal is to encourage physicians and the medical associations of which they are a part to hold firm to medicine’s Hippocratic roots and continue to oppose assisted suicide measures. […]

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Minnesota Alliance for Ethical Healthcare Launches

We at the CBC are excited to be a member of the just launched Minnesota Alliance for Ethical Healthcare, a diverse coalition of doctors, nurses, advocates for persons with disabilities, medical ethicists, elder-care workers, and others committed to ensuring real care throughout life’s journey. Healthcare should always involve the best possible care options for every […]

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Our New Film

Jennifer Lahl and I released our latest documentary short film yesterday. Compassion and Choice DENIED explores the effects efforts to legalize physician assisted suicide have on those who are living with terminal illness but who do not want “aid in dying.” Stephanie’s story highlights ways in which the difficulty of living with a terminal diagnosis […]

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New Documentary Reveals Effects of Assisted Suicide Legalization on Those Who Want to Live

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  San Francisco, CA / October 17, 2016 — Jennifer Lahl and The Center for Bioethics and Culture, producers of the award-winning Eggsploitation (2010, 2013), Anonymous Father’s Day (2011), Breeders: A Subclass of Women? (2014), and Maggie’s Story (2015) announce the release of their new documentary short film, Compassion and Choice DENIED. Compassion […]

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Compassion and Choice DENIED

This morning we released the official trailer for our newest documentary short film, DENIED. The film explores the impact that the legalization of physician assisted suicide has on those who want to live. We explore this through the story of Stephanie, a terminally ill mother of four who has experienced first hand the effects of […]

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3 Things You Should Know About Physician Assisted Suicide

Over the next few days I want to highlight our “3 Things You Should Know About . . .” document series. To begin, here are 3 Things You Should Know About Physician Assisted Suicide. Physicians Should Never Be In the Business of Harming Their Patients Physician Assisted Suicide Places Society’s Weakest and Vulnerable at Elevated […]

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Dignity, Sickness, and Suffering

Amy Hasbrouck, the executive director of Toujours Vivant/Not Dead Yet Canada, recently wrote a terrific piece on the ways in which journalists sometimes (often?) distort the realities of assisted suicide and euthanasia when they report on it. She takes as her jumping off point an HBO Vice “Right to Die” segment, which she finds to […]

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This Week in Bioethics

1. Can We? Should We? Our Christopher White this week highlighted two ways in which President George W. Bush’s decision — now 15 years ago — to limit federal funding for embryo destructive stem cell research has been vindicated. First, non-embryonic (aka adult) stem cells have proven to be much more powerful and useful that […]

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Assisted Suicide is Not Medicine

Dr. Philip Dreisbach, a California oncologist and hematologist, recently wrote an excellent and compelling piece on the dangers of physician assisted suicide. Unfortunately, the article remains locked behind the Wall Street Journal’s pay wall. Allow me then to highlight a few sections of Dr. Dreisbach’s writing, quoting from it more extensively than I normally would. […]

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This Week in Bioethics

1. Dutch Doctors and Self-Starvation Our friend Wesley Smith has reviewed a document from the Dutch Medical Association that provides directions for doctors who are helping their patients commit suicide by self-starvation. Among the many deeply disturbing guidelines in the document, perhaps this is most chilling: “Older patients need not be advised against consciously choosing not […]

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