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Supreme Court-Right to Die

             The question of whether or not any one person has the capacity, legally or otherwise to take one's own life is one of the most debated and fundamentally thought provoking in society's history. Life, death and all the events and actors they encompass are not easily placed within the parameters of a legal society such as the United States. This is perhaps why it is so difficult to take a clear stance on the issue. Although the highest legal body in this country has ruled on the issue the debate remains. Is physician-assisted suicide a legal and moral act in which any given person, in any specific situation should be able to partake in? I believe the answer is yes, and it is why I would have decided the Supreme Court cases of Washington v. Glucksberg and Quill v. Vacco differently.
             The first argument for those in favor of phyisican-assisted suicide is that of equal protection. The Supreme Court ruled in the Cruzan case that any competent individual could refuse life saving medical treatment. In my opinion there is absolutely no distinction between refusing extraordinary life saving means and hastening eminent death with physician assisted suicide. In either case the end result will be the same and since one is protected under the Constitution the other, physician-assisted suicide should be as well. It is after all the underlying illness or disease that has brought the individual to deaths door, it is that individuals right to determine how and when they wish to pass through it. A competent individual protected under the law set in the Cruzan case should apply in the situation of physician-assisted suicide as well. The fact that they are not is a highly hypocritical position that I believe the court was incorrect in making.
             The second argument in favor of physician-assisted suicide is that of due process. I believe that the right to end one's own life is a personal, private right that is covered by the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution.


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