In fiction, James Bond was given a license to kill by the British government. In reality, the Dutch government, which should know better because of its experience with the occupying Nazis, recently gave physicians their own license to kill. The Dutch parliament, in a 91–45 vote, set supposedly strict conditions under which doctors may now […]

The decision by a Michigan jury to acquit Dr. Jack Kevorkian of a criminal charge that he helped a 30-year-old man kill himself erases an important line between life and death that will not easily be redrawn. The jury ignored Michigan’s law banning assisted suicide and played a semantical game when it concluded there is […]

Grandma was over 90 years old, and she still lived in her own house. She had a hearty body, a sound mind and a kind heart. She often went to “visit the old people,” as she put it. (I guess she figured those old folks in their seventies and eighties needed a visit from a […]

A jury in Michigan has acquitted Jack Kevorkian of violating a state law banning assisted suicide. Kevorkian’s defense was that he did not “intend” to kill the two persons he was accused of helping to kill, but wanted to alleviate their suffering. A related case occurred last week in San Francisco. In an 8-3 decision, […]

How appropriate that in the 24th anniversary month January of Roe vs. Wade, which denied the right to life to an unborn baby, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether individuals have a constitutional “right to die.” As with abortion, “hard cases” are trotted out by the “death-with-dignity” crowd as leverage against whatever resistance […]

These days the Dutch are lauded for their successful establishment of euthanasia within carefully controlled guidelines. To hear the “right-to-die” people tell it, The Netherlands is living proof that a modem society can control doctor-induced death and prevent abuse. When I read recently that Dutch Dr. Sippe Schat had been charged with murder in the […]

I had gone to visit Grandpa in Groningen, Holland, for the last time before coming to the United States to study in January, 1996. He was in a nursing home because of a stroke years earlier, but he still played excitedly in a chess club, often went to concerts, and wrote us newsy letters about […]

Euthanasia Euthanasia, including assisted suicide, is another example of misdirected pity in our present culture. It is being tolerated and accepted by people in our society out of pity for someone experiencing suffering. The Bible teaches us to have compassion for and give help to those suffering. Certainly every legitimate medical means should be used […]

I hate cooked spinach; always have, always will. Always looked to me like seaweed, and tasted just as bad. I blamed Popeye for it. The cartoon character with the forearms and the muscle-generating can of spinach caused many boys (and girls) to eat more of the green stuff than they wanted. At least I could […]