Americans tend to endorse the use of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia when the question is abstract and hypothetical.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia have been profound ethical issues confronting doctors since the birth of Western medicine, more than 2,000 years ago.
Even putting aside the Judeo-Christian morality upon which the Constitution and our nation's culture are based, the notion of forced euthanasia would contradict the long-held body of medical ethics to which all American doctors must adhere.
By establishing a social policy that keeps physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia illegal but recognizes exceptions, we would adopt the correct moral view: the onus of proving that everything had been tried and that the motivation and rationale were convincing would rest on those who wanted to end a life.
Of all the arguments against voluntary euthanasia, the most influential is the 'slippery slope': once we allow doctors to kill patients, we will not be able to limit the killing to those who want to die.
Yes, we need euthanasia, for certain cases where people are in comas or too immobile to even press a button.
Far from definitively resolving the assisted suicide issue, the court's decisions seem to assure that the debate over assisted suicide and euthanasia is not yet over - and may have only begun.
The killing of a disabled person is not 'compassionate'. It is not 'euthanasia'. It is murder.
Nineteen percent of doctors say that they'd be able to give their patients a lethal injection. But they also went on to say that the patient would have to be really, really behind on payments.
Illness and death are not optional. Patients have a right to determine how they approach them.
Patients who are being kept alive by technology and want to end their lives already have a recognized constitutional right to stop any and all medical interventions, from respirators to antibiotics. They do not need physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.