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RELEASED: April 3, 2003
DANVILLE, KY—The Centre College Office of Religious Life, together with Our Savior Lutheran Church in Danville, will sponsor a lecture on euthanasia by prominent public advocate and writer Wesley Smith.
Smith's talk, "The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder," will take place on April 7 at 7 p.m. in Newlin Hall on the Centre campus. The lecture will be followed by a book signing.
According to Smith, assisted suicide is often sold to the public as a last-resort solution for the terminally ill. Smith, a California attorney and expert consultant on this issue, maintains that the assisted-suicide movement is "distracting the media from focusing on all that medicine can do to alleviate suffering and misdirecting it instead toward the more news-exploitable issue of killing."
Smith's lecture will examine the wider agenda of the euthanasia movement including "access to death" for people with "hopeless conditions." He will discuss the Netherlands and Oregon laws as case studies as well as alternatives such as pain control, hospice and specialized living facilities.
Smith was born and raised in Los Angeles, where he practiced law from 1976 to 1985. During this time, he was a partner in his own law firm and served on several bar association committees, including the California State Bar Committee on Public Affairs.
He left the full-time practice of law in 1985 to pursue a career in writing and public advocacy. Smith has authored or co-authored eight books. His first was The Lawyer Book: A Nuts and Bolts Guide to Client Survival, published in 1987. He next wrote The Doctor Book: A Nuts and Bolts Guide to Patient Power (1988) and The Senior Citizens' Handbook: A Nuts and Bolts Guide to More Comfortable Living (1989). He has co-authored four books with consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
Smith is a "committed defender of the equality and sanctity of human life." His book Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder (1997), a broad-based criticism of the assisted suicide/euthanasia movement was published in 1997.
His current book is Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, a warning about the dangers of the modern bioethics movement.
Smith has been an anti-euthanasia activist since 1993. He's an attorney and consultant for the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force. Smith's writing and opinion columns on assisted suicide, bioethics, legal ethics and public affairs have appeared in national and regional publications throughout the country including Newsweek, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and others.
Smith has appeared on more than 900 television or radio talk/interview programs including such national programs as ABC Nightline, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, CNN Crossfire, CNN World Report and the CBS Evening News.
Our Savior Lutheran Church in Danville received funding for this event through a grant from the Schwan Foundation.
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Communications Office
Centre College
600 W. Walnut Street
Danville, KY 40422
Public Information Coordinator: Telephone 859-238-5714