(Jonathon Van Maren ) — So it seems that suicide is now a medical service, and the debate in Canada has come and gone with barely a whisper. With the exception of a few newspaper columnists fretting here or there, the debate seems to have subsided before it really began. Those who oppose euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide now face the dual task of preventing suicide activists from successfully loosening euthanasia restrictions even further, and educating their peers on why legalizing any form of suicide — much less suicide facilitated and perpetrated by medical professionals — is so extraordinarily dangerous.

As I discuss which arguments can be used most effectively against euthanasia with other pro-life activists, one apologetic consistently stands out to me as especially powerful, perhaps because it is rooted in my own experience: The inescapable fact that legalizing physician-assisted suicide relegates those who qualify for such a service to the status of second-class citizen. CONTINUE