"Fourteenth Amendment Due Process protects one's right to make intimate and personal choices, such as those relating to the time and manner of one's death" (49). .
In Judge Reinhardt's ninth circuit court ruling, he gave his thoughts on a patient's autonomy. "In this case, by permitting the individual to exercise the right to choose, we are following the constitutional mandate to take such decisions out of the hands of government and to put them where they rightly belong: in the hands of the people." "What interest can the state possibly have in requiring the prolongation of a life that is all but ended? And what business is it of the state to require the continuation of agony when the result is imminent and inevitable? The answer to these questions: None," said Judge Miner in her ruling of Quill vs. New York (Egendorf 81-82).
One of the major arguments against the practice of euthanasia is that it violates Christian ideals. Some people say that inducing death is "playing God" and, therfore, unnatural. But then aren't all medical practices "playing God"? A doctor may save a person's life when it was God's will for them to die. "The Bible does not take any moral, religious or ethical stand on suicide." People say that God gives us the gift of life, and God should be the one to take it away. John Pridonoff says, "my understanding of a gift is that it is given without strings or attachments. If God has truly "given me a gift of life", then it is mine to do with as I wish" (Egendorf 19, 27, 29).
Dr. Roger Hunt is a palliative care doctor with thirteen years experience. In his speech "A Bedside Perspective of Euthanasia," he argues the ethical ground for euthanasia. " claiming that euthanasia is just another name for homicide is like saying that making a surgical incision is just another form of assault by stabbing" (4). In his article on ethics, Edmund Pellegrino raises the question, " does a person's dominion over his or her life transcend law, ethics, and morality- (2843).