Should euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide be legal?
PRO (yes)
CON (no)
The American Medical Association (AMA) stated
in its June 1996 article "Decisions Near the End
of Life," available at www.ama-assn.org:
Margaret P. Battin, PhD, Distinguished Professor
of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Internal
Medicine at the University of Utah, and Timothy
E. Quill, MD, Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry,
and Medical Humanities at the University of
Rochester, stated the following in their 2004
book Physician-Assisted Dying: The Case for
Palliative Care & Patient Choice:
"We firmly believe that physician-assisted death
should be one--not the only one, but one--of the
last-resort [the last to be used] options available
to a patient facing a hard death. We agree that
these options should include high dose pain
medication if needed, cessation [cancel] of lifesustaining therapy, voluntary cessation of eating
and drinking, and terminal sedation [putting down
via sedatives]. We also believe, however, that
physician-assisted dying, whether it is called
physician-assisted death or physician aid in
dying or physician-assisted suicide, should be
among the options available to patients at the
end of life."
2004 - Margaret P. Battin, PhD
Timothy E. Quill, MD
Jack Kevorkian, MD, a retired pathologist also
known as 'Dr. Death' who has aided over 130
people in ending their lives, stated the following
in a 1990 interview with Cornerstone magazine:
"I believe there are people who are healthy and
mentally competent enough to decide on suicide.
People who are not depressed. Everyone has a
right for suicide, because a person has a right to
determine what will or will not be done to his
body. There’s no place for people to turn today
who really want to commit suicide. Teenagers,
and the elderly [old people] especially, have
nowhere to turn. But when they come to me, they
will obey what I say because they know they’re
talking to an honest doctor."
1990 - Jack Kevorkian, MD
The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso, PhD),
spiritual leader and Head of State of the Tibetan
government in exile [ссылка], stated the
following in a 1985 letter to Asiaweek:
"In the event a person is definitely going to die
and he is either in great pain or has virtually
become a vegetable, and prolonging his
existence is only going to cause difficulties and
suffering for others, the termination of his life
may be permitted according to Mahayana
"It is understandable, though tragic, that some
patients in extreme duress--such as those
suffering from a terminal, painful, debilitating
illness--may come to decide that death is
preferable to life. However, permitting physicians
to engage in euthanasia would ultimately cause
more harm than good. Euthanasia is
fundamentally incompatible with the physician's
role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to
control, and would pose serious societal risks.
The involvement of physicians in euthanasia
heightens the significance of its ethical
prohibition. The physician who performs
euthanasia assumes unique responsibility for the
act of ending the patient's life. Euthanasia could
also readily be extended to incompetent patients
and other vulnerable populations.
Instead of engaging in euthanasia, physicians
must aggressively respond to the needs of
patients at the end of life. Patients should not be
abandoned once it is determined that cure is
impossible. Patients near the end of life must
continue to receive emotional support, comfort
care, adequate pain control, respect for patient
autonomy, and good communication."
June 1996 - American Medical Association (AMA)
Courtney S. Campbell, PhD, Professor of Ethics,
Science, and the Environment in the Department
of Philosophy at Oregon State University, stated
the following in a May 16, 2007 email to
ProCon.org:
"I am opposed to the legalization of voluntary
euthanasia for terminally ill patients as
administered by physicians (it goes without
saying I would opposed involuntary euthanasia
as well). While I respect and advocate for
patients to have control and dignity in dying, it is
contrary to the vocation of medicine to
intentionally hasten or cause death. In all cases
(medical or non-medical), taking human life
should be a last resort, and until our society has
given appropriate attention to pain control,
hospice care, and advance directive, we will not
have met the criteria of last resort with respect to
legalized euthanasia. I accept refusal or nontreatment of patients with terminal conditions
Buddhist ethics."
wherein the underlying cause of death is a
disease or organic pathology."
1985 - Tenzin Gyatso, PhD
May 16, 2007 - Courtney S. Campbell, PhD
Marcia Angell, MD, Senior Lecturer in the
Department of Social Medicine at Harvard
Medical School, stated the following in her July
11, 2006 article "The Quality of Mercy," Daniel Callahan, PhD, Director of International
published in theWillits News:
Programs at the Hastings Center, stated the
following in his 2004 book The Case Against
"There is no right way to die, and there should be Assisted Suicide: For the Right to End-of-Life
no schism [discord] between advocates for better Care:
palliative care and advocates for making it "This path to peaceful dying rests on the illusion
possible to hasten [to make it closer] death with a that a society can safely put in the hands of
physician's help. Good palliative care and the physicians the power directly and deliberately to
right to make this choice are no more mutually take life, euthanasia, or to assist patients in
exclusive than good cardiologic care and the taking their own life, physician-assisted suicide...
availability of heart transplantation. To require It threatens to add still another sad chapter to an
dying patients to endure unrelievable suffering, already sorry human history of giving one person
regardless of their wishes is callous [heartless] the liberty to take the life of another. It
and unseemly [obscene, outrageous] . Death is perpetuates and pushes to an extreme the very
hard enough without being bullied. Like the relief ideology of control--the goal of mastering life and
death--that created the problems of modern
of pain, this too is a matter of mercy...
medicine in the first place. Instead of changing
the medicine that generates the problem of an
July 11, 2006 - Marcia Angell, MD
intolerable death (which, in almost all cases,
Philip Nitschke, MD, Director and Founder of Exit good palliative medicine could do), allowing
International, stated the following in his June 5, physicians to kill or provide the means to take
2001 interview "Euthanasia Sets Sail," published one's own life simply treats the symptoms, all the
while reinforcing, and driving us more deeply
in the National Review Online:
"My personal position is that if we believe that into, an ideology of control."
there is a right to life, then we must accept that
people have a right to dispose [get rid of] of that 2004 - Daniel Callahan, PhD
life whenever they want... I do not believe that
telling people they have a right to life while
denying them the means, manner, or information
necessary for them to give this life away has any Pope Benedict, XVI, 265th Pope of the Catholic
ethical consistency."
Apostolic Roman Church, stated the following in
his July 2004 article "Worthiness to Receive Holy
June 5, 2001 - Philip Nitschke, MD
Communion: General Principles," available at
www.vatican.va:
"The Church teaches that abortion or euthanasia
is a grave sin...
Martin Gold, JD, Partner at Sonnenschein Nath &
Rosenthal, stated the following in his Oct. 1996 Not all moral issues have the same moral weight
"Brief of Amicus Curiae Bioethicists Supporting as abortion and euthanasia... While the Church
Respondents," Vacco v. Quill andWashington exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war,
and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing
v. Glucksberg:
punishment on criminals, it may still be
permissible to take up arms to repel an
Physicians, in carrying out their ethical duty to aggressor or to have recourse to capital
relieve the pain and suffering of their terminally-ill punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity
patients, should be legally permitted to accede of opinion even among Catholics about waging
[admit &follow] to the desire of a patient to war and applying the death penalty, but not
hasten death when the patient's decision is however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."
voluntarily reached, a patient is competent to
make the decision, and the patient has been fully
July 2004 - Pope Benedict XVI
informed of the diagnosis and prognosis of an
incurable, fatal disease which has progressed to
the final stages...
Michael Manning, MD, author and former
The right to physician-assisted suicide should be medical practitioner, stated the following in his
recognized by this Court as a fundamental right...
Moreover, the amicus group agrees with the
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Quill
that the denial of physician-assisted suicide is a
denial of equal protection to terminally-ill patients
who do not have the option of hastening death by
requesting the removal of life support systems."
Oct. 1996 - Martin Gold, JD
1998 book Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted
Suicide: Killing or Caring?:
"I believe the evidence leads to the conclusion
that we must not legalize euthanasia or
physician-assisted suicide. Instead, our society
should mobilize a life-giving health care system
that includes compassionate care for the dying,
adequate analgesia and human comforts near
the end of life, and widespread education about
the right to refuse burdensome medical care."
1998 - Michael Manning, MD
Patrick Hopkins, PhD, Professor of Philosophy at
Millsaps College, stated the following in his May
1, 1997 article "Why Does Removing Machines
Count as 'Passive' Euthanasia?," published in
the Hastings Center Report:
"[I]f we are cruel in refusing to let nature free
patients from the trap of technology, we are both
cruel and conceptually blind when we refuse to
let technology free patients from the trap of
nature... When we remove machines playing
these functional roles from hurting and hopeless
patients, we kill those 'trapped by technology.'
But this is not a bad thing. It is bad when we
refuse to grant people trapped by nature the
same benefit."
1997 - Patrick Hopkins, PhD
Bernard Baumrin, PhD, MD, Professor of
Philosophy at the City University of New York,
stated the following in his 1998 article "Physician,
Stay Thy Hand!," in the book Physician Assisted
Suicide: Expanding the Debate:
"Doctors must not engage in assisting suicide.
They are inheritors of a valuable tradition that
inspires public trust. None should be even partly
responsible for the erosion of that trust. Nothing
that is remotely beneficial to some particular
patient in extremis is worth the damage that will
be created by the perception that physicians
sometimes aid and even abet people in taking
their own lives."
1998 - Bernard Baumrin, PhD, MD
Frances M. Kamm, PhD, Lucius Littauer
Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy at the
John F. Kennedy School of Government, stated
the following in her 1998 article "PhysicianAssisted Suicide, Euthanasia, and Intending
Death," published in Physician-Assisted Suicide:
Expanding the Debate:
"We have constructed a three-step argument for
physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia:
Assuming patient consent, 1) we may
permissibly cause death as a side effect if it
relieves pain, because sometimes death is a
lesser evil and pain relief a greater good; 2) we
may permissibly intend other lesser evils to the
patient, for the sake of her greater good; 3)
therefore, when death is a lesser evil, it is
sometimes permissible for us to intend death in
order to stop pain. Call this the Three-Step
Argument."
Wesley Smith, JD, anti-euthanasia activist,
stated the following in his 1997 book Forced Exit:
The Slippery Slope From Assisted Suicide to
Legalized Murder:
"The equality-of-human-life ethic requires that
each of us be considered of equal inherent moral
worth, and it makes the preservation and
protection of human life society's first priority.
Accepting euthanasia would replace the equalityof-human-life ethic with a utilitarian and nihilistic
'death culture' that views the intentional ending of
certain human lives as an appropriate and
necessary answer to life's most difficult
challenges. As I hope to demonstrate in this
book, the dire consequences that would flow
from such a radical shift in morality are profound
and disturbing."
1998 - Frances M. Kamm, PhD
1997 - Wesley J. Smith, JD
Michael White, JD, Member of the Board of
Directors at the Death With Dignity National
Center, stated the following during an Apr. 22,
1997 speech, "Should Physician-Assisted
Suicide be Legalized?," at the Fred Friendly
Seminar:
"Physician-assisted suicide should be a lawful
medical procedure for competent, terminally ill
Robert Beezer, LLB, Judge on the US Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, stated the following
in his 1996 dissenting opinion in Compassion in
Dying v. Washington:
"Constitutional protection for a right to assisted
suicide might spawn pressure on the elderly and
adults, because it is a compassionate response infirm--but still happily alive--to 'die and get out of
to relieve the suffering of dying patients."
the way.' Also at risk are the poor and minorities,
who have been shown to suffer more pain (i.e.
they receive less treatment for their pain) than
Apr. 22, 1997 - Michael White, JD
other groups... Further, like the elderly and infirm,
they, as well as the handicapped, are at risk of
being unwanted and subjected to pressure to
Peter Rogatz, MD, MPH, Vice President of choose physician-assisted suicide rather than
treatment...
Compassion and Choices of New York, stated continued
the following in his Nov. - Dec. 2001 article "The
Positive Virtues of Physician-Assisted Suicide: The poor, the elderly, the disabled and minorities
Physician-Assisted Suicide is Among the Most are all at risk from undue pressure to commit
Hotly Debated Bioethical Issues of Our physician-assisted suicide, either through direct
pressure or through inadequate treatment of their
Time," The Humanist:
"Physician-assisted suicide isn't about physicians pain and suffering. They cannot be adequately
becoming killers. It's about patients whose protected by procedural safeguards, if the Dutch
suffering we can't relieve and about not turning experience is any indication. The only way to
away from them when they ask for help. Will achieve adequate protection for these groups is
there be physicians who feel they can't do this? to maintain a bright-line rule against physicianOf course, and they shouldn't be obliged to. But if assisted suicide."
other physicians consider it merciful to help such
patients by merely writing a prescription, it is 1996 - Robert Beezer, LLB
unreasonable to place them in jeopardy [риск
понести уголовную ответственность] of
criminal prosecution, loss of license, or other
penalty for doing so."
The Family Research Council stated the
following on its webpage "Human Life and
Bioethics," available at www.frc.org (accessed
Nov. - Dec. 2001 - Peter Rogatz, MD, MPH
Jan. 21, 2009):
"Disabling diseases and injuries, including those
for which there is a terminal diagnosis, are tragic.
However, there is no such thing as a life not
worth living. Every life holds promise, even if
disadvantaged by developmental disability,
injury, disease, or advanced aging. FRC believes
that every human life has inherent dignity, and
that it is unethical to deliberately end the life of a
suffering person (euthanasia), or assist or enable
another person to end their life (assisted suicide).
While extraordinary means of life support, such
as assistance with respiration and heart function,
may be withdrawn from a terminally ill person if
that is the person's expressed wish, nutrition and
hydration are normal and not extraordinary
means of maintaining life, and severe disability is
not the same as terminal illness. True
compassion means finding ways to ease
suffering and provide care for each person, while
maintaining the individual's life and dignity."
Jan. 21, 2009 - Family Research Council (FRC)
Sissela Bok, PhD, Senior Visiting Fellow at the
Harvard Center for Population and Development
Studies, stated the following in the 1998 article
"Physician-Assisted
Suicide,"
in
the
bookEuthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide:
For and Against:
"I continue to find great and needless risks in
moving toward legalizing euthanasia or
physician-assisted suicide. I also remain
convinced that such measures will not deal in
any way adequately with the needs of most
persons at the end of life, least of all in societies
without adequate health care insurance available
to all. No society has yet worked out the hardest
questions of how to help those patients who
desire to die, without endangering others who do
not. There is a long way to go before we arrive at
a social resolution of those questions that does
not do damage to our institutions."
1998 - Sissela Bok, PhD
Leon Kass, MD, PhD, Addie Clark Harding
Professor at the University of Chicago, stated the
following in his Winter 1989 article "Neither for
Love nor Money: Why Doctors Must Not Kill,"
published in Public Interest:
"The prohibition against killing patients... stands
as the first promise of self-restraint sworn to in
the Hippocratic Oath, as medicine's primary
taboo: 'I will neither give a deadly drug to
anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a
suggestion to this effect'... In forswearing the
giving of poison when asked for it, the
Hippocratic physician rejects the view that the
patient's choice for death can make killing him
right. For the physician, at least, human life in
living bodies commands respect and reverence-by its very nature."
Winter 1989 - Leon Kass, MD, PhD
Diane Coleman, JD, Founder and President of
Not Dead Yet, stated the following in her article
"Assisted
Suicide
and
Disability,"
www.abanet.org (accessed Feb. 9, 2007):
"Assisted suicide has been marketed to the
American public as a step toward increasing
individual freedom, but choice is an empty slogan
in a world full of pressures on people with chronic
illnesses and disabilities. Now is not the time to
establish a public policy securing the profits of a
health care system that abandons those most in
need and would bury the evidence of their
crime."
Feb. 9, 2007 - Diane Coleman, JD
The American College of Physicians stated the
following in its Aug. 7, 2001 position paper
"Physician-Assisted Suicide," published in
the Annals of Internal Medicine:
"The American College of Physicians–American
Society of Internal Medicine (ACP–ASIM) does
not support the legalization of physician-assisted
suicide. The routine practice of physicianassisted suicide raises serious ethical and other
concerns. Legalization would undermine the
patient–physician relationship and the trust
necessary to sustain it; alter the medical
profession’s role in society; and endanger the
value our society places on life, especially on the
lives of disabled, incompetent, and vulnerable
individuals. The ACP–ASIM remains thoroughly
committed to improving care for patients at the
end of life."
2001 - American College of Physicians
The Islamic Medical Association stated the
following in its May 13, 1996 article "Euthanasia
and Physician-Assisted Suicide," available at
www.islam-usa.com:
"The IMA [Islamic Medical Association] endorses
the stand that there is no place for euthanasia in
medical management, under whatever name or
form (e.g., mercy killing, suicide, assisted
suicide, the right to die, the duty to die, etc.). Nor
does it believe in the concept of a willful and free
consent in this area. The mere existence of
euthanasia as a legal and legitimate option is
already pressure enough on the patient, who
would correctly or incorrectly, read in the eyes of
his/her family the silent appeal to go."
May. 13, 1996 - Islamic Medical Association
The International Task Force on Euthanasia and
Assisted Suicide stated the following in its
"Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Frequently
Asked
Questions,"
available
at
www.internationaltaskforce.org (accessed Jan.
21, 2009):
"The government should not have the right to
give one group of people (e.g. doctors) the power
to kill another group of people (e.g. their
patients).
Activists often claim that laws against euthanasia
and assisted suicide are government mandated
suffering. But this claim would be similar to
saying that laws against selling contaminated
food are government mandated starvation.
Laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide
are in place to prevent abuse and to protect
people from unscrupulous doctors and others.
They are not, and never have been, intended to
make anyone suffer."
Jan. 21, 2009 - International Task Force on Euthanasia and
Assisted Suicide
William Burke, MD, PhD, Professor at Saint
Louis University Health Sciences Center, stated
the following in a Jan. 4, 2007 email to
ProCon.org:
"In many states it is now legal to euthanize
disabled persons by starvation and dehydration
without any evidence of their wishes based on
the 'best interest' form of substituted judgement...
In my view this is not only murder it is torturing a
person to death. Why do state and Federal law
allow this barbaric behaviour?"
Jan. 4, 2007 - William Burke, MD, PhD
The New York State Task Force on Life and the
Law stated in its 1994 book When Death Is
Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the
Medical Context:
"American society has never sanctioned assisted
suicide or mercy killing. We believe that the
practices would be profoundly dangerous for
large segments of the population, especially in
light of the widespread failure of American
medicine to treat pain adequately or to diagnose
and treat depression in many cases. The risks
would extend to all individuals who are ill. They
would be most severe for those whose autonomy
and well-being are already compromised by
poverty, lack of access to good medical care, or
membership in a stigmatized social group. The
risks of legalizing assisted suicide and
euthanasia for these individuals, in a health care
system and society that cannot effectively protect
against the impact of inadequate resources and
ingrained social disadvantage, are likely to be
extraordinary."
1994 - New York State Task Force on Life and the Law
The United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops stated the following in its Sep. 12, 1991
article "Statement on Euthanasia," posted on the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
website:
"As Catholic leaders and moral teachers, we
believe that life is the most basic gift of a loving
God--a gift over which we have stewardship but
not absolute dominion. Our tradition, declaring a
moral obligation to care for our own life and
health and to seek such care from others,
recognizes that we are not morally obligated to
use all available medical procedures in every set
of circumstances. But that tradition clearly and
strongly affirms that as a responsible steward of
life one must never directly intend to cause one's
own death, or the death of an innocent victim, by
action or omission...
We call on Catholics, and on all persons of good
will, to reject proposals to legalize euthanasia."
Sep. 12, 1991 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops