"Pro-Life" Groups Focus on Aid in Dying.

It was predictable: state-level "pro-life" groups are working to focus their awareness efforts on end of life issues. The ubiquitous Wesley J. Smith was in Vermont for the annual National Right to Life rally this week to help attendees focus their efforts on aid in dying.

From the Times Argus; the article is a look at how these groups are approaching patients' rights and end of life care without any knowledge of the dying process and an un-nuanced approach to that ill-defined term "life." And the article is so fawning, it hardly counts as reporting.

Allowing doctors or other medical professionals to legally end the lives of patients is a radical, "culture-changing" shift in American society that, once begun, can lead to unintended and horrible actions.

A nationally known speaker, Wesley J. Smith, issued that warning in Montpelier on Saturday to the roughly 400 people who packed the Statehouse during the annual Vermont Right to Life rally.

"When we're talking about assisted suicide, we're talking about something that is really a culture-changing agenda," Smith told the crowd. "I mean, think about the potential impact on how we view each other as human beings."

Smith, who is a lawyer, bioethicist and writer whose articles frequently appear in well-established conservative journals such as National Review and The Weekly Standard, gave an impassioned speech to the rally-goers, who ranged from young children to senior citizens.

Smith sprinkled his speech with stories from Oregon and the Netherlands, places that already have approved assisted suicide. His message was that even though most legislation allowing the practice limits it to the terminally ill, it quickly – and logically – begins to include people in all types of pain.

"Once you accept the premise that ending life intentionally through artificial means is an acceptable answer to a problem of human suffering, how do you leave it to the terminally ill?" Smith asked.

The answer is that once legal, it's not limited to the terminally ill, Smith said.