euthanasia
Great knits – shame about the film: Almodovar’s The Room Next Door reviewed
The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodovar’s first film in the English language and if it is his last we…
Tales of the Midwest: The Collected Works of Jo Ann Beard, reviewed
Violence and death are balanced by hard-won, transcendent joy in Beard’s remarkable stories that merge fiction and memoir
Deeply moving but bleak: Plan 75 reviewed
Plan 75 is a dystopian Japanese drama about a government-sponsored euthanasia programme introduced to address Japan’s ageing society. Aged 75…
Assisted dying is a slippery slope
What are your thoughts on assisted dying and assisted suicide? That’s the question asked by a Health and Social Care…
Michel Houellebecq may be honoured by the French establishment, but he’s no fan of Europe
For many years, Michel Houellebecq was patronised by the French literary establishment as an upstart, what with his background in…
Eugenics will never work — thankfully
The creation of a master race is an ancient idea which, thankfully, can never work, says Sam Leith
German euthanasia clinics refusing unvaccinated customers
Irony has been declared many times in this pandemic but now, from Covid-riddled Germany comes the final proof: you can’t…
Can doctors be 'neutral' on assisted dying?
The British Medical Association (BMA) has dropped its opposition to assisted dying after a landmark vote. In doing so, it…
The burden of guilt: The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, by Richard Flanagan, reviewed
Thanks to the Booker Prize, Richard Flanagan is probably the only Tasmanian novelist British readers are likely to have heard…
Euthanasia sitcom: What Are You Going Through, by Sigrid Nunez, reviewed
What Are You Going Through is both brilliant and mercifully brief. Weighing in at 200-odd pages, it can be read…
Letters: Is marriage really that great?
Not an island Sir: I and those with whom I live and work are all within coughing distance of Sam…
A Spectator debate: should euthanasia be legalised? Douglas Murray vs Sam Leith
Four years ago, the Assisted Dying Bill was overwhelmingly defeated in parliament. The euthanasia debate hasn’t disappeared, however. One recent…
I always come away more confused after listening to Moral Maze
Is it me or are we now faced (or perhaps I should say fazed?) much more often by stories in…
How I tried – and spectacularly failed – to assist my mother’s suicide
‘If your time ain’t come, not even a doctor can kill you’ — so goes the proverb that best echoes…
Silencing dissent against assisted suicide
Later this week the Ministerial Advisory Panel set up by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to advise his government on a…
Don DeLillo foresees the imminent death of death
Cults, the desert, natural disasters. Artists, bankers, terrorists. Cash machines, food packaging, secret installations. Mediaspeak and scientific jargon. Crowds and…
‘I could do many things... but I could not listen to Bach’
Six years ago, on Good Friday, the journalist Melanie Reid was thrown off her horse while on a cross-country ride…
Cinema needs films like Chronic – just not a lot of them
Scholarly filmgoers may recall a movement that sprouted from Danish soil called Dogme 95. It worked to a Spartan set…
Why I’m sick of slippery-slope arguments
Good laws and valuable scientific discoveries are being blocked with the laziest argument in the book
Charles Moore’s Notes: Mr Cameron swings wildly between toughness and compassion
Presumably Britain has some sort of policy on immigration, asylum and refugees, but instead of struggling to understand it, you…
Did Hans Asperger save children from the Nazis — or sell them out?
Simon Baron-Cohen wonders whether the humane Hans Asperger may finally have betrayed the vulnerable children in his care in Nazi-occupied Vienna
A licence to kill - the slippery slope of 'assisted dying'
If you don’t think legalising ‘assisted dying’ is a slippery slope, you haven’t been paying attention
Assisted dying? Ancient religion was all for it
There is something mildly unexpected about religious groups’ hostility to euthanasia. After all, in the ancient world one of the…
