Right To Die - Network For Church Monitoring

US: Catholic Church Amps Up Its Fight Against Aid in Dying

Posted by N4CM Christian Right Watch, News, Top Stories 18 Jun 2011

Source: The Nation. On Thursday the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will release a new document that calls for the end of legal aid in dying. To Live Each Day with Dignity marks a nationwide effort by the Roman Catholic Church to influence how patients will be cared for at the end of their lives. Citing a Death with Dignity bill that passed in Washington in 2008, a ruling protecting [...]

Dr Ann McPherson: The GP who believes she should be allowed help to end her life

Posted by N4CM Features 24 Jan 2011

Source: The Independent. A growing number of medical professionals are supporting the idea of assisted dying. Dr Ann McPherson – who herself has only months to live – explains why.The problem is personal – McPherson is herself dying.

It’s not because I want to die

Posted by N4CM Books 15 Jan 2011

Exclusive excerpt from Debbie Purdy’s book, “It’s not because I want to die”. In July 2009 Purdy won a significant legal victory in the UK’s House of Lords which lawyers have described as a turning point for the law on assisted suicide. She succeeded in arguing that it is a breach of her human rights not to know whether her husband will be prosecuted if he accompanies her to Swiss clinic Dignitas where she wishes to die if her condition worsens.

Dishonest to God: On Keeping Religion Out of Politics

Posted by N4CM Books, Wall of Separation 11 Jan 2011

Exclusive excerpt from Baroness Mary Warnock’s book, “Dishonest to God: On Keeping Religion Out of Politics”. A pugnacious book by a philosopher who often hits the headlines, it powerfully argues that religious and theological issues should have no place in public morality issues such as euthanasia, assisted suicide, and abortion.

US: Corporate media distorts end-of-life legislation

Posted by N4CM Opinion 5 Jan 2011

Source: The Huffington Post, 5 January 2011. By Linda Milazzo. Across America people suffer end-of-life illness. They agonize in pain. They agonize in fear. They’re in drug induced stupors. Modest people soil themselves in front of friends and family. They avert their eyes in shame. They lose and regain consciousness. They welcome the unconscious moments [...]

Religion and the Right to Life

Posted by N4CM Opinion 31 Dec 2010

Source: Choice in Dying, 30 December 2010. By Eric MacDonald. As the subtitle of this Blog points out, my purpose is mainly to argue for the right to die, and to oppose the religious obstruction of this right. Christians argue, however, that had it not been for the Christian belief that God is love, we would [...]

De-criminalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, says law prof

Posted by N4CM Top Stories 29 Dec 2010

29 December 2010 by: | Canadian Lawyer | Olivia D’Orazio Downie will be giving a lecture at McGill University on Jan. 13 and says she will not only review where Canadian laws currently stand on these issues, but also suggest the need for law reform. “My ideal [situation] would be that it, euthanasia and assisted suicide, [...]

A good death: On the curious status of arguments in the debate about euthanasia

Posted by N4CM Opinion 7 Dec 2010

Source: Psychology Today, 6 December 2010. By Kristie Miller. Arguments about public policy are funny things. Consider the debate about whether active voluntary or non-voluntary euthanasia ought to be legalised. By voluntary euthanasia I mean euthanasia with the consent of the patient, and by non-voluntary euthanasia I mean euthanasia in cases where the consent of [...]

Cancer is killing me, so why can’t I decide when and how I die?

Posted by N4CM Opinion 24 Nov 2010

Source: Daily Mail, 23 November 2010. By Dr Ann McPherson. At a cancer check-up in early June 2009, I got the news I most dreaded. The tumour doctors had discovered in my pancreas three years earlier, and from which I’d been free for two wonderful years, had returned and spread to my lung. ‘We can’t [...]

UK: Assisted dying debate: When Mary met Cristina

Posted by N4CM Features 23 Oct 2010

Source: The Guardian, 23 October 2010. This week the Centre for Policy Studies published a report, written by Cristina Odone, called Assisted Suicide: How the Chattering Classes Have Got It Wrong. She simultaneously wrote a personal piece about how she had refused to help her seriously ill father die. Lady Warnock, in contrast, was taking part [...]