The constitutionality of statutes prohibiting and permitting physician-assisted suicide.

Assisted Suicide and Unassisted Suicide: What's the Difference?

Introduction Discussions about whether or not to legalize assisted suicide often fail to take into account the fact that unassisted suicide [1] is already legal.[2] Failure to consider this fact means that unless there is a significant difference between assisted suicide and unassisted suicide that justifies prohibiting the former while permitting the latter, one must either accept inconsistenc...

Physician-assisted suicide: new protocol for a rightful death.

concepts not specifically rooted in the Constitution. However, in finding that the New York statutes violate the Equal Protection Clause, the Second Circuit itself seems to expand upon the meaning of "similarly circumstanced," positing a specific meaning to the phrase which cannot necessarily be proven. These two appellate decisions, Compassion in Dying v. Washington and Quill v. Vacco, clearly...

Stemming the tide: assisted suicide and the constitution.

Oregon became the first state in the nation to legalize assisted suicide. Passage of Proposition 16 was a milestone in the campaign to make assisted suicide a legal option. The culmination of years of effort, the Oregon vote followed on the heels of failed referenda in California and Washington, and other unsuccessful attempts to enact state laws guaranteeing the right to suicide assistance. In...

The "Supremes" decide on assisted suicide: what should a doctor do?

On June 26, 1997, the US Supreme Court ruled in 2 unanimous decisions that there is no constitutionally protected right to assisted suicide. Overturning 2 1996 Federal Appeals Court rulings that had struck down Washington and New York state laws prohibiting assisted suicide, the Supreme Court rejected 2 key arguments. First, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the right to liberty guar...

The right to choose how to die: a constitutional analysis of state laws prohibiting physician-assisted suicide.