Wesley Smith, a plenary speaker at the 2013 Life and Learning Conference, opened with the question, “Why, when medical science has gone so far to limit and eliminate pain, are we considering ‘the right to die,’ ‘death with dignity,’ and ‘assisted suicide’?” He believes that the answer lies in Yuval Levin’s explanation that “health” has become a principle goal of the human action and human societies, and therefore eliminating suffering is important public good that too often that morphs into eliminating the sufferer. If you are interested in more of his argument, check out his blog, Human Exceptionalism on NRO.