Wagner Calls for Defense of Human Dignity in State Bar Address on Physician-Assisted Killing

This week in Lansing, the Hon. William Wagner (Ret.), Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, delivered a keynote address before the Religious Liberty Section of the State Bar of Michigan addressing the growing movement to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Michigan and the profound constitutional, moral, and cultural implications surrounding the issue.

Speaking from both a constitutional and biblical worldview perspective, Wagner warned that the recently proposed Michigan legislative package—including House Bills 5825, 5826, 5827, and 5828—would fundamentally transform Michigan law by authorizing physician-assisted killing, restructuring criminal law to accommodate it, integrating assisted death into insurance systems, and insulating participating medical professionals from traditional disciplinary oversight.

Wagner argued that the legislation reflects a dangerous shift away from America’s foundational recognition of the inherent dignity and equal worth of every human life. Citing the Declaration of Independence, he reminded attendees that constitutional liberty rests upon the transcendent truth that human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” foremost among them the right to life.

He further warned that once society abandons objective moral boundaries grounded in the sanctity of life, the vulnerable inevitably suffer first. Drawing upon international examples from Canada, the Netherlands, and Belgium, Wagner explained how physician-assisted suicide laws routinely expand beyond their original limitations, eventually normalizing death as a solution to suffering, disability, loneliness, and dependency.

Central to Wagner’s address was his defense of the historic Hippocratic tradition of medicine. He noted that for centuries physicians pledged: “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it.” Wagner cautioned that once physicians transition from healers to life-ending technicians, the moral integrity of medicine fundamentally changes and public trust erodes.

Calling physician-assisted suicide a “worldview battle over the meaning of human dignity,” Wagner urged lawmakers, attorneys, and citizens alike to defend the sanctity of life and preserve the moral foundations necessary to sustain constitutional self-government.