Scott Adams' Blog

California Legalizes Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill

Posted October 6th, 2015 @ 7:10am in #deathwithdignity

Regular readers of this blog know I have some history with the topic of doctor-assisted dying.

My father died in 2013. That experience left my emotions raw, and prompted me to write this blog post.* It went viral.

At the time, a Gallup poll said 51% of Americans favored doctor-assisted dying. That seemed low to me. Indeed, when the question was asked in a more positive way, Gallup showed support in the high sixties.

A year later, according to Gallup, support for doctor-assisted dying law in America had jumped from 51% to 58%. Using positive phrasing for the same poll question, support was as high as 69%.

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Morally Acceptable Behavior

Posted May 29th, 2015 @ 8:49am in #deathwithdignity #compassionandchoices #physician-assisteddying

According to this poll, a majority of Americans now find physician-assisted dying to be morally acceptable behavior.

That doesn’t mean the practice should be legal, obviously. There are lots of practical considerations. But the majority no longer sees it as a moral failing.

On a related matter, I have been noodling on the question of how best to reduce the number of coerced physician-assisted deaths in places where it is legal. There is no perfect solution, but I think social media could someday be part of it.

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Death with Dignity - Claims Phase

Posted May 4th, 2015 @ 12:34pm in #deathwithdignity #AMA #disabledrights #catholic

In my prior post, Jimmy Akin provided the seed argument against physician-assisted death that I will pass through what I call the Rationality Engine. 

I have reduced Jimmy’s extensive arguments, along with other notable thoughts on the topic, into “claims” which I will soon evaluate for a verdict. 

Today I hope you can check my work and make sure the claims are clear, bias-free, and complete before I start with verdicts.

A lot of my readers here are big-media writers and editors, along with politicians and other thought leaders. So what we do here does influence the real world. And I think it is important because literally nowhere else is anyone even attempting objectivity on this topic.

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