“Obsessional” Fear of Suffering Ushering in Euthanasia Culture: Prominent Bioethicist

LANSDOWNE, Virginia, June 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A culture that seeks to escape suffering and inconvenience at all costs will end by eliminating not only pain, but by ending the lives of those suffering or whose condition burden their families, warned bioethicist Wesley J. Smith this weekend.

Reflecting on the euthanasia agenda amid the modern advances of palliative care, Smith asked, "Why now?" 

Smith said he found the answer in the reflections of philosopher and bioethicist Yuval Levin, who stated: "Health has become the primary good for society ... not only as a beginning, but also as an end, relief and preservation from disease and pain, from misery and necessity, become the defining ends of human action and therefore human societies."