Final Exit Network, Zealotry and Groupthink

Miracles, Malpractice, Survivors and Recovery

"End of Life" - Questions and a Suggested Response for Disability Advocates

Art Caplan "Debunks" 23-year Misdiagnosis of PVS in Belgium, But Omits Some Details
Over the past week, there has been a lot of news coverage regarding the case of Ron Houben, a man in Belgium who as labeled as being in a persistent vegetative state.  He was severely injured in an auto accident in 1983, and since shortly after that has been regarded as being in a persistent vegetative state. Twenty-three years later, things looked very different.  Houben's family believed he

New Hampshire: House Judiciary Committee Votes Against Assisted Suicide Bill
Some good news from New Hampshire: A bill to legalize assisted suicide in New Hampshire lost key backing yesterday from a legislative committee when both supporters and opponents joined forces to reject it. The House Judiciary Committee voted 14-3 against the bill that would let terminally ill patients over age 18 obtain lethal prescriptions, with safeguards to prevent abuses. Supporters of

Disability Activists "Greet" Euthanasia Activist in San Francisco
This just in from Marilyn Golden, Policy Analyst at Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF):(The date for the events below was November 10, 2009)On Tuesday morning, three anti-assisted suicide advocates from the San Francisco Bay Area disability community, Paul Longmore, Walter Park, and myself came to the San Francisco Buddhist Center (which had been rented for the occasion but

New Ad from FRC Seems to Say Old People Shouldn't Get Expensive Operations
My reactions to what passes for a "health care" discussion in the US kind of vacillates - between eye-rolling and outright gagging. The ad below accomplishes both. It's the latest from the Family Research Council, defenders of "family values" and claiming to value human life.In the clip below, however, is a short exchange between a young boy and his grandfather, presumably when some version of

Followup on Princetonian - and more thoughts at Bad Cripple
Update on the article that appeared in yesterday's edition of the Princetonian, which contained inaccurate and defamatory remarks about NDY.The online article has been revised. The article also carries an Editor's note at the end of the article, which we're told was published in today's print edition of the Princetonian:Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article inaccurately