Throughout history there have been many cases of assisted suicide, many people view it as someone who is taking pills and going to sleep or physically asking for help, but there are other cases of assisted suicide that people forget, those who are no longer allowed to speak and may be in a persistent vegetative state. These are the people that the assistance is most needed.
In the 1990 case of Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, the Court considered whether Missouri could insist on proof by "clear and convincing evidence" of a comatose patient's desire to terminate her life before allowing her family's wish to disconnect her feeding tube to be carried out. Although eight of nine justices, only Scalia disagreed, concluded that the right to die was a liberty protected by the Due Process Clause, a bare majority of the Court upheld the state's insistence upon clear and specific evidence that the patient would wish to have intravenous feeding discontinued. The Cruzan decision spurred considerable evidence in "living wills" which clearly express an individuals desire to discontinue treatment or feeding in specified circumstances. Later, additional evidence of Nancy's wishes was discovered and feeding was discontinued, leading to her death (Cruzan v. Missouri Dep't. of Health, 1990).
Following the Curzan case was the case of Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, this was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a right to assistance in committing suicide was not protected by the Due Process Clause (Washington v. Glucksberg, 1997). The Court upheld two state laws absolutely prohibiting assisted suicide, stating that Washington state's law does not violate constitutional guarantees of "liberty" (Washington v. Glucksberg) and that New York's similar law does not violate constitutional guarantees of equal protection (Vacco v. Quill). Oregon's law selectively permitting assisted suicide for certain patients had been found by one federal district court to violate equal protection; that ruling was not before the Supreme Court. See Lee v. Oregon, 891 F.Supp. 1429 (D. Or. 1995), vacated on other grounds, 107 F.3d 1382 (9th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 328 (1997). As Chief Justice Rehnquist said in his majority opinion in Glucksberg: "Lee, of course, is not before us... and we offer no opinion as to the validity of the Lee courts' reasoning. In Vacco v. Quill..., however, decided today, we hold that New York's assisted-suicide ban does not violate the Equal Protection clause." Washington v. Glucksberg, 117 S. Ct. 2258, 2262 n. 7 (1997)
Assisted suicide seems, at first glance, like a good thing to have available. But on closer inspection, there are many reasons legalization is a very serious mistake. Supporters of assisted suicide view it as dignified way to end ones suffering, but opponents view it as a moral issue and in a round about way, murder. The taking of another’s life, even if it is to end his or her suffering, is still the act of taking someone’s life away. Wiping them off the face of the map without hope, without looking for all avenues of hope. We must separate our private wishes for what we each may hope to have available for ourselves some day and, rather, focus on the significant dangers of legalizing assisted suicide as public policy in this society as it operates today. Assisted suicide would have many unintended consequences.
The legalization of assisted suicide is driven by anecdotes of people who suffer greatly in the period before death. Suicide requests from people with terminal illness are usually based on fear and depression. As Herbert Hendin, M.D., Medical Director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and a leading U.S. expert on suicide, stated in Congressional testimony in 1996, "a request for assisted suicide is … usually made with as much ambivalence as are most suicide attempts. If the doctor does not recognize that ambivalence as well as the anxiety and depression that underlie the patient's request for death, the patient may become trapped by that request and die in a state of unrecognized terror" (Hendin, 1996). Most cases of depression among terminally ill people can be successfully treated (U.S. Catholic Conference, 2001). Yet, primary care physicians are generally not experts in diagnosing depression.
Proponents claim that assisted suicide will be narrowly limited to those who are terminally ill, but these so-called "narrow" proposals will inevitably be expanded. The New York State Task Force on Life and the Law wrote in 1997: "Once society authorizes assisted suicide for ... terminally ill patients experiencing un-relievable suffering, it will be difficult if not impossible to contain the option to such a limited group. Individuals who are not (able to make the choice for themselves), who are not terminally ill, or who cannot self-administer lethal drugs will also seek the option of assisted suicide, and no principled basis will exist to deny (it).” Still others would undergo assisted suicide because they lack good health care, or in-home support, and are terrified about going to a nursing home. As Diane Coleman noted regarding Oregon's law, "Nor is there any requirement that sufficient home and community-based long-term care services be provided to relieve the demands on family members and ease the individual's feelings of being a ‘burden' … The inadequacy of the in-home long-term care system is central to the assisted suicide and euthanasia debate" (Coleman, 2002). As Paul Longmore has stated, "Given the absence of any real choice, death by assisted suicide becomes not an act of personal autonomy, but an act of desperation. It is fictional freedom; it is phony autonomy" (Longmore, 1999).
Every person on this planet has a right to live and die, the argument that remains to this day is when and should that right ever be taken away. Both sides of this issue offer up compelling and reasonable arguments, but what it truly comes down to is what is best for the person suffering. Proponents look at the situation that they or a loved one is in as the greatest suffering that a person can be faced with and that the humane thing to be done is to end that suffering. Not wanting to compare man to animals there is something that stick out in this writers mind. When your animal is aged and suffering and the pain is so great and all options are exhausted what are we taught the humane thing to do is? We pack our pets up in their coziest carriers and take them on that long to the vet, we do this ease their pain and their suffering, that is the humane thing to do, yet if a father is aged and suffering in an unrecoverable position we are told that doing that same thing is inhumane and we liken it to murder. So does that mean we can put our hearts and minds on the shelf when it comes to the suffering of our pets, but that loved ones should be made to suffer so that we can feel we did all that was possible to keep them with us?
Death with dignity is how some people see assisted suicide; others obviously view it as murder and an act against God. “'Thou shalt not kill any living thing,' for life is given to all by God, and that which God has given, let not man taketh it away,” is the chant that opponents of assisted suicide scream from the rooftops. They believe that as long as a persons heart can beat and air is in their lungs that they are a living person. This obviously conflicts with those in the scientific community who say that when a person’s brain is no longer functioning that the person is dead.
Reference List:
Coleman, Diane, J.D. (2002). "Not Dead Yet," in The Case Against Assisted Suicide - For the Right to End-of-Life Care. Ed. Kathleen Foley and Herbert Hendin. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hendin, Herbert, M.D. (1996). "Suicide, Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Lessons From the Dutch Experience.," Testimony. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Oversight Hearing.
Longmore, Paul K. (1999). Professor of History, San Francisco State University. Speech. "Death with Dignity? An Educational Forum." Legislative Council, Alameda County
New York State Task Force on Life and the Law. (1997). "When Death is Sought." 1997 supplement
Oyez Project, Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dept. of Health , 497 U.S. 261 (1990)
available at: ()
(retrieved Sunday, March 14, 2010).
Oyez Project, Washington v. Glucksberg , 521 U.S. 702 (1997) available at: () (retrieved Sunday, March 14, 2010).
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. 2001. Analysis of Oregon's Year 3 Report: () (retrieved Sunday, March 14, 2010).
