(Wesley J. Smith / The Corner) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee wrote a book in 2007 opposing the legalization of assisted suicide. I reviewed that book for First Things, and noted that while he splendidly considered the (then) legal precedents and philosophical questions, (to my dismay) Gorsuch did not deal with the politics of the issue.
Now, assisted suicide advocates are citing that book as a reason to prevent the eminently qualified appeals court judge from being confirmed, for example, in this Washington Post piece, in which the author worries about Gorsuch stripping ”one of the most sacred rights as a human being,” e.g. the supposed right to have a doctor help make one dead.
Assisted suicide is hardly a “sacred” human right. Despite all the ruckus both pro and con about the issue (including by me), after decades of advocacy–supported with millions of advocacy dollars by George Soros and others–only a handful of countries and five states plus DC have enacted statutes that allow doctors to legally write lethal prescriptions. CONTINUE