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Wesley Smith Culture Of Death Summary

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In Culture of Death, Wesley J. Smith is very clear about his opinions on where the future of healthcare is headed. In my essay, I will be discussing Smiths’ statements regarding assisted suicide, euthanasia and removal of food and fluid and why he believes the government should put an end to legalizing these practices. I will also discuss the important cases of Annette Corriveau, Robert Latimer, and others.
Wesley Smith is a bioethicist and human rights activist that advocates for the illegalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia. Smith began getting involved with cases regarding euthanasia and assisted suicide after one of his best friends killed himself shortly obtaining advice from the Hemlock Society which is a group that supports …show more content…

Robert killed his daughter by carbon monoxide poisoning out of “mercy” because of her cerebral palsy. Similar to the Corriveau case, Robert felt no remorse for killing his only daughter because he truly believes that his daughter was in pain and would not have wanted to continue living in the condition she was in. Robert has to spend the rest of his life in prison because he did not have a substantial case to prove that his daughter would have wanted to …show more content…

This type of case has already happened for George Delury and Susan Randall. George Delury’s wife, Myrna Lebov had multiple sclerosis which left her disabled and in pain. George claimed that his wife begged him that she wanted to die so he chose to kill her out of mercy and respect her wishes. People all over the country and the media felt sorry for Mr. Delury and thought what he did was courageous and respectable. However, this excerpt was later found in George’s diary “I have work to do, people to see, places to travel. But no one asks about my needs. I have fallen prey to the tyranny of a victim. You are sucking my life out of me like a vampire and nobody cares.” (Chapter 3 Packet, page 9). George was sentenced to only six months in jail for murdering his wife and then he proceeded to commit

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“Whose body is this?” With those four words she single-handedly launched the right-to-die debate onto the public stage. She took her cause to court without caring what society thought. Knowing that there was a big chance her plan to legalize physician-assisted suicide would not work, she sacrificed her self-confidence by staying true to her beliefs and what she thought was right. In the end she ultimately committed suicide, with the help of a physician, proving her point; that no one could control what she did when she had her own fate decided.

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This chapter opens with the account of Susan Smith of South Carolina, and of Andrea Yates of Texas. In both cases, these women took the lives of their children. Smith strapped her two young sons into their car seats and drove her car into a lake. Yates drowned her five children in the family bath tub. Smith in particular paints a gruesome picture in my mind.

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Callahan’s opinion on euthanasia is a strong one. He begins his essay with three major points before going on to his major arguments against the controversial procedure. Starting with the topic of “consenting adult killing,” goes on to the limits of self-determination, and the final subject of these three is that medicine should be prepared to help those who need it to achieve their own view on a good life. Moving on, Callahan’s first major argument is on self-determination. He states that euthanasia is not one of these matters.

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Georgie Milton did something not many people have the guts to do, he took the life of his best friend to save him from the torture that awaited him, but, he took the life of another man and he took this life with the intention of murder. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, there is no difference between euthanasia and murder; and to this indictment, George Milton has pleaded not guilty. If I am to prove him otherwise, you must find him so. Lennie Small has been described to us as a caring giant. He had no bad intentions; and it is fair to say that our witnesses have provided us with sufficient evidence to support my argument.

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In the documentary, Bill Moyers talks to three terminally ill patients, their families, and their doctors about the concerns with physician-assisted suicide (PAS). PAS allows a terminally ill patient to hasten an inevitable and unavoidable death through a lethal dose. The patients considered PAS in order to end their prolonged suffering. The legal role of advance directives in end of life issues allows a patient to specify how he wishes to be treated by a healthcare provider during a progressively weakened state. Advance directives may provide patients with freedom to choose end of life treatment, but moral and religious implications, the ethical battle between a physician’s duty to care and inner-conscious, and state laws pose threats to PAS.

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