Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder [Hardcover]

The author of this book is the lead lawyer of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, an organization that opposes all forms of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

One of the changes that has made this discussion meaningful is the discussion between humane care and medical treatment. Humane care would include food, heat, washing etc; the basics, if you will. Medical treatment would be drugs, surgery and so on. In some recent US Supreme Court case, certain types of humane treatment has been reclassified as medical treatment (e.g. water and food). The significance of the change is this; patients cannot refuse humane treatment but they can refuse medical treatments, at a certain point (or have others refuse medical treatments on their behalf).

There are sections that document the development of euthanasia in the United States through court cases and attempted legislation (in the 1930's and the present).

There are sections on the Holland called, "Dutch Treat," is particularly good. Holland is the only country that where euthanasia is widely available (Holland made it totally legal on November 28, 2000). Smith shows the progression in Holland, how the guidelines are routinely violated and so on. One of the scary problems is INvoluntary euthanasia: 1,040 people (an average of 3 per day) died from involuntary euthanasia, meaning that doctors actively killed these patients without the patients' knowledge or consent.

Smith shows that the euthanasia agenda would endanger the disabled, the ill, the elderly, those with low education, minorities etc... In Holland, there is universal health care for all paid for through taxes, in the United States it is partially private and partially public.

Smith shows the two philosophies that at conflict in the current debate. The anti-euthanasia proponents hold to the equality-of-human-life ethics: "that each of us be considered of each inherent moral worth, and it makes the preservation and protection of human life society's first priority." (page xxi) This is contrasted with the quality-of-human-life ethic, which gives human beings value (protection etc...) not because they are human but only if they possess certain qualities. I think that Smith wisely chooses to examine Peter Singer as the principal philosopher of the movement; one of the interesting things was the reaction of critics to the book. In America and Britain, the book was warmly welcomed and highly praised. However, in Germany, "... Singer has... been severely criticized and demonstrated against in Germany, a country with an acute memory of the horrors can result from adopting such values as his." (page 23).

The book also exposes the myth that all persons who oppose euthanasia are religious fanatics, from atheist Nat Hentoff, "I can't base my opposition to euthanasia on religion. I am an atheist!" (page 202). Also, "As Rita Marker, director of the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force, notes, 'Legislation that prohibits sales clerks from stealing company profits also coincides with religious beliefs, but it would be absurd with the separation of church and state.'" (page 201)

One last note, one of the main reasons that euthanasia is encouraged is that the suffering is too great etc. Smith shows that most doctors are very poorly trained in pain treatment and that hospice care is rarely promoted. Smith shows that almost all pain can be treated even advanced bone cancer etc...

The book was excellent and I appreciate the detailed examples, history and court cases that Smith writes about.