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Speaker: Steven Thrasher, PhD

In a single week in December 2025, the Democratic governors of New York and Illinois both signed bills into law which legalized medically assisted suicide. Upon noticing this, journalist and scholar Steven W. Thrasher began to study how many "right to die" bills had passed in Western countries since the Covid-19 pandemic. These laws were often passed despite the objections of disabled activists and with the support of liberal politicians—even as those same politicians were killing legislation which would create a right to housing or a right to universal medical care (ie, a "right to life"). 

Using Canada's 2016 "MAID" (Medical Assistance In Dying) law, recently passed bills in the United States and Europe, the daily occurence of suicide in U.S. jails, the films The Bridge (2006) and Life After (2015), the writings of Alice Wong, and Achille Mbembe's Necropolitics (2011) as analytics, Prof. Thrasher will challenge a liberal rights framework of independence with a disability rights framework of interdependence to theorize medically assisted suicide.

The Stephen and Sandra Glass Annual Humanities Lecture at ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ is an endowed lecture series showcasing international figures in the humanities. Established in 2004, it honors founding faculty member Stephen L. Glass and his wife, Sandra Glass, with support from alumna Nancy Rose Bushnell ’69.

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