Physician Assisted Suicide1
Many voters throughout the United States are taking the measure to legalize physician assisted suicide to the polls. If it is legalized, the United States will have legalized a much quicker, more humane method(as opposed to terminal sedation) of ending the suffering of terminally ill patients. The only legal process of this sort in the United States is terminal sedation, a method that can oftentimes add to a patient's problems. Although Oregon is the only state to have successfully passed such a bill for the legalization of physician assisted suicide, the pressure to confront this issue is growing along with the movement for legalization. Opponents of the Oregon bill, mostly Christian conservative groups, are planning to appeal this case to the Supreme Court in hopes of a reversal of the Oregon Supreme Court's decision. Though the emotional battle of physician assisted suicide is the prerogative of voters on both sides of the issue, the fundamental question that will have to be answered by the Courts is whether or not the liberty observed by the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment contains a right to perform suicide, which itself includes a right to assistance in doing so. This clause states, "No State shall make
Euthanasia. Human Sciences, rev. 1977. Hoeffler, James M. Deathright: Culture, Medicine, Politics, and the Right to Die Movement. Westview Press, 1994. Euthanasia in the United States," The New England Journal of Medicine. April 23, 1998.
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Approximate Word count = 2444
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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