By Wesley J. Smith
Thursday, May 15, 2008

For the past two decades, euthanasia/assisted-suicide ideologues have worked overtime to conflate palliative care—the medical alleviation of pain and other distressing symptoms of serious illness—with intentionally ending the life of the patient. The movement's first target was the hospice, a specialized form of care for the dying created forty years ago in the United Kingdom by the late, great medical humanitarian Dame Cicely Saunders. Determined to treat what she called the “total pain” of dying patients, Saunders' great innovation was to bring a multidisciplinary team to the task of ensuring that their physical pain, existential suffering, spiritual needs, and mental health are all properly attended.

Saunders believed that suicide prevention, when needed, is an essential part of the package, crucial to fulfilling a hospice's call to value the lives and intrinsic dignity of each patient until the moment of natural death. Indeed, when I was trained as a hospice volunteer, my instructor pounded into my head the importance of reporting to the hospice team any suicide threats or yearnings my patient might express so they could initiate proper intervention. As a consequence of this philosophy, many patients who might have killed themselves were later very glad still to be alive to get the most of the time they had remaining.

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Media Bias: Redbook Magazine Tells Women Only One Side of Abortion Story

by Maria Vitale
June 2, 2008

"Love Your Life." That's the slogan on the cover page of the May edition of "Redbook" magazine. It's an ironic statement, however, given one of the articles inside the pages.

"The Shadow Side of Motherhood" explains that "Becoming a mom is one of life's greatest joys. But for some of us, the path to motherhood takes a gut-wrenching turn."

The article deals with the various sadnesses that can accompany pregnancy--miscarriage, life-threatening illness, postpartum psychosis, premature delivery, separation anxiety from placing a child for adoption.

In the midst of these stories is an account of a completely unnatural, preventable death -- the death of a child from abortion.

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