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ASSISTED SUICIDE IN DECLINE, SCHOLAR SAYS

WASHINGTON, May 21, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "Assisted Suicide is losing support," says international assisted suicide expert Wesley J. Smith. "In my ten years as an activist opposing assisted suicide, I first saw the pendulum swing broadly in favor of legalization, and then, in recent years, breathed a sigh of relief as it ever-so-slowly moved back against it," Smith writes in a National Review op-ed piece. "Considering how things looked only six years ago, it is a dramatic turnaround worth celebrating."
Smith, who is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, argues that the "supposed inevitability" of euthanasia is crumbling. Gallup polls show that 49% of Americans see doctor-assisted suicide as "wrong" and only 45% as "acceptable." A favourite weapon of the pro-euthanasia forces, "anti-religious demagoguery," he says, "doesn't cut it anymore."

Smith notes that, "assisted suicide has not taken a significant step forward in the United States since 1997, the year doctors began to legally write lethal prescriptions in Oregon. ... Of course, none of this means that the assisted-suicide threat has passed. Even under the best of circumstances, the movement will remain with us for years to come. But the trend line, at least for now, seems to be heading in the right direction."

For the complete op-ed piece:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-smith052003.asp

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