Physician Assisted Suicide a Constitutional Right?

The Catholic Lawyer, Oct 2017

By Kathleen McGowan, Published on 10/25/17

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Physician Assisted Suicide a Constitutional Right?

Physician Assisted Suicide a Constitutional Right? Kathleen McGowan Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/tcl Part of the Constitutional Law Commons Recommended Citation KATHLEEN McGowAN" No man is an Hand, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, apartof the maine; ... any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde ... ' Modern medical technology allows Americans to live longer, healthier lives.2 Cures for diseases once considered terminal are now commonplace.3 Many other lives are extended by means of medicine, operations, organ transplants, and highly technical machines.4 At the same time, however, these advances present moral, ethical, and legal dilemmas where prolonging life seems only to increase a person's pain and lengthen the dying process.5 When infirmities are incurable and the person can be maintained solely in a debilitated condition, he may face a choice of whether to prolong the dying process.6 The question thus arises . J.D. Candidate, 1998, St. John's University School of Law. Dedicated to my son, John, who taught me the value of life. ' John Donne, Devotions XVII, in THE COMPLETE POETRY AND SELECTED PROSE OF JOHN DONNE & THE COMPLETE POETRY OF WILLIAM BLAKE 331 (John Hayward, ed., Random House (1941)). 2 See Developments in the Law-Medical Technology and the Law, 103 HARV. L. REV. 1519, 1522 (1990) [hereinafter Developments]. Id. at 1523. Id. at 1522 n.1 See G. Steven Neeley, The Right to Self-Directed Death:ReconsideringAn Ancient Proscription,36 CATH. LAw. 111 (1995). 6 "[Mlost people cannot accept and plan for the fact of their own death." JESSE DUKEMINIER & STANLEY M. JOHANSON, WILLS, TRUSTS, AND ESTATES 67 (5th ed. whether a competent individual has rights and options concerning decisions affecting his medical treatment and ultimately his death.7 The attitudes of family, religion, and society influence that decision-making process and our laws.8 Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari and heard oral arguments9 in two cases involving the rights of terminally ill' ° competent adults" who wish to end their 1995). "Our own death is indeed unimaginable, and whenever we make the attempt to imagine it we can perceive that we really survive as spectators. Hence ... at bottom no one believes in his own death...." Id. (quoting Sigmund Freud, OurAttitude Towards Death, in 4 COLLECTED PAPERS 304 (1925)). 7 A patient has the right to be informed about his medical condition and his lives with the assistance of a physician. In Washington v. Glucksberg, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit," and Vacco v. Quill, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,"3 held, respectively, that the laws of the states of Washington 4 and New York 5 prohibiting one person from aiding another to commit suicide violated rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Each court held that terminally ill patients have the right to physician assisted suicide but reached their conclusions on separate Constitutional grounds." The Ninth Circuit en banc, in Washington v. Glucksberg,7 held that a terminally ill, competent adult has a constitutionally guaranteed, "liberty interest in determining the time and manner of one's own death." 8 The Washington statute prohibiting assisted suicide, therefore, violated the Substantive Due Process a set of personal values and goals, the ability to communicate with others and to understand information provided by others, and the capacity to reason and deliberate about the decision." Developments, supra note 2, at 1644 n.10. Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 F.3d 790 (9th Cir. 1996), cert. granted sub nom., Washington v. Glucksberg, 117 S.Ct. 37 (U.S. October 1, 1996) (No. 96110). The plaintiffs are a coalition of three terminally ill patients, four physicians who treat terminally ill patients, and a non-profit organization that provides counseling, support, and assistance to terminally ill patients considering suicide. Id. at 794. Since the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to this case under the name Washington v. Glucksberg, this Comment hereinafter refers to the case as Glucksberg rather than Compassion in Dying. Quill v. Vacco, 80 F.3d 716 (2d Cir.), cert. granted, 117 S.Ct. 36 (U.S. Oct. 1, 1996) (No. 95 - 1858). Since the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari under the name Vacco v. Quill, this Comment herinafter will refer to the case as Vacco v. Quill or Quill. " "A person is guilty of promoting a suicide attempt when he knowingly causes or aides another person to attempt suicide." WASH. REV. CODE § 9A.36.060 (1987). " "A person is guilty of promoting a suicide attempt when he intentionally causes or aids another person to attempt suicide." N.Y. PENAL LAW § 120.30 (McKinney 1987). "A person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree when: ... [hie intentionally causes or aids another person to commit su (...truncated)


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Kathleen McGowan. Physician Assisted Suicide a Constitutional Right?, The Catholic Lawyer, 2017, Volume 37, Issue 3,