Testimony of Wesley J. Smith in Opposition to Legislation of physician-assisted Suicide in California (AB 651)

Before the Senate Judiciary Committee “Informational Hearing,”

June 20, 2006

Good afternoon. My name is Wesley J. Smith. I am an author and consumer advocate. I am a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, an attorney and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, and a special consultant for the Center for Bioethics and the Culture. For more some thirteen years I have been deeply engaged in public policy debates about the most important bioethical issues our nation and our states face. These include researching and writing about the ongoing erosion of Hippocratic medical values in bioethics involving areas such as assisted suicide.

I am the author or coauthor of 11 books, including Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder and Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, both of which deal substantially with the issue of assisted suicide. Culture of Death was named “Best Health Book of the Year” at the 2001 Independent Publishers Book Awards. Forced Exit has just been released in its third edition. Further details about my credentials are attached to my written testimony.