Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide: The Quest to Die with Dignity

“But if the disease be not only incurable, but also full of continual pains and anguish, then the priests and the magistrates exhort the man (seeing that his not able to do any irksome to others and grievous to himself) that he will determine with himself no longer to cherish that pestilent and painful disease; and…either dispatch himself out of that painful life, as out of a prison or rack of torment, or else suffer himself to be willingly rid of it by another”

Thomas More, Utopia

The term euthanasia, as defined by the American Heritage College dictionary, refers to the act or practice of ending the life of an individual suffering from a terminal illness or an incurable condition Used synonymously with the term “physician-assisted suicide,” defined by Loretta M. Kopelman and Kenneth A. De Ville in their book Physician-Assisted Suicide as “[occurring] when a physician gives assistance to enable someone to bring about his/her own death” (89), the debate over euthanasia began over fifty years ago when small isolated groups in the United States and Europe began to argue in favor of allowing terminally ill patients to end their own lives if they so desired, and allowing the families and guardians of those on life support to decide to end the patient’s life. These arguments gained broader ground in the 1960’s during the various social movements including the sexual revolution and civil rights. During the 1970’s, the first largely publicized case pertaining to physician-assisted suicide gained national status. In 1975, 21-yr old Karen Ann Quinlan fell into a coma and was decidedly judged to be in a “chronic persistent vegetative state,” making her unable to survive without the support of an artificial respirator. Quinlan’s family attempted to remove her from life support but were not allowed to do so by her doctor, which lead to a lawsuit and eventually a ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court that patients have a right to terminate life support. The debate peaked in the 1990’s with Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Public Health (1990) when Nancy Cruzan’s parents requested that their daughter, who had been in a persistent vegetative state for five years, have her feeding tube removed.

The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where a 5-4 ruling implicitly recognized for the first time a constitutional right to refuse treatment in extraordinary circumstances. After Cruzan, the next big case to reach the national docket was that of Terri Shiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose husband fought against her parents to remove her feeding tube. Between 2003 and 2005 Shiavo became the main topic of debate amongst pro right to die and anti- right to die interest groups. The courts maintained a consistent consensus that it was ultimately her husband’s decision, as her legal guardian, to determine what his wife desired in her current state and thus in March of 2005, Shiavo’s feeding tube was removed and she died. In the years following the Shiavo case, the right to life debate lost some momentum yet still remains an issue of importance in the eyes of many interest groups. (The Pew Research Center; The Right-to-Die Debate and the Tenth Anniversary of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act).