The Bioethics of Neil Gorsuch

The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia is a resounding rebuke of the legalization of aid in dying (the term preferred by proponents, just coming into use at the time Gorsuch was doing his research). The book is not specifically about abortion, and the term is not even listed in the book's index. Still, social conservatives have long defined their “pro-life” ethic as a “seamless garment,” covering a person's life from birth through death. In this “consistent life” philosophy, abortion and stem cell research, as well as euthanasia and assisted suicide, are of a whole cloth—one is only defensible so much as the others are. “Once we open the door to excusing or justifying the intentional taking of life as ‘necessary,' we introduce the real possibility that the lives of some persons (very possibly the weakest and most vulnerable among us) may be deemed less ‘valuable,' and receive less protection from the law, than others,” Gorsuch writes in the book, using language long employed in the anti-abortion wars (and frequently quoted by the media since his nomination).