The Judicial Council of the American Medial Association has taken the position that supporting irreversibly comatose patients often constitutes a prolongation of death rather than life. It believes that discretion should remain in the hands of attending physicians, family members, and patients themselves, whose wishes on the matter have been documented. It opposes the adoption of legally binding policies, which may be too inflexible and arbitrary to suit the unending variety of individual circumstances. (Schmerl, p. 31) .
There also exist similar theological viewpoints, even those presented by the catholic church, which commends "ordinary" means of preserving life, but leaves the "extraordinary" means to the discretion of the physician. In my view, we have come a long way, from a medicinal perspective as well as an ethical perspective, regarding the suffering and euthanasia. Indeed, at one time, euthanasia was tantamount to murder. In point of fact, there are many who believe that the right to die is unethical. At this point, I should like to address their viewpoints. Courts and moral philosophers alike have long accepted the proposition that people have the right to refuse medical treatment they find painful or difficult to bear, even if that refusal means certain death. But an appellate court in California has gone one controversial step further. It ruled that Elizabeth Bouvia, a cerebral palsy victim, had an absolute right to refuse a life sustaining feeding tube as part of her privacy rights under the U.S. and California Constitutions. This was the nation's most sweeping decision in perhaps the most controversial realm of the rights explosion: the right to die. In 1976, the New Jersey Supreme Court granted a request by the parents of the unconscious Karen Ann Quinlan to remove her from a respirator. The parents, claiming to stand in the shoes of their daughter said she would have wanted to be taken off the machine.