Abstract
In 2015, as baby boomers retire and Americans live longer, end-of-life issues are more pressing than ever. Among the most controversial of these issues is the law of suicide. Like the law of marijuana2 and of same-sex marriage,3 this area of our law has undergone change in recent years.
The State has no legitimate general interest in someone’s life, completely abstracted from the interest of the person living that life….1
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Notes
See, e.g., Margaret P. Battin & Rosamond Rhodes, PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE: EXPANDING THE DEBATE (New York: Routledge, 1998)
Laura Larsen, FACING THE FINAL MYSTERY: A GUIDE TO DISCUSSING END OF LIFE ISSUES (New York: Blue Sky Press, 2nd ed., 2004)
Fiona Stewart & Philip Nitschke, THE PEACEFUL PILL HANDBOOK (Bellingham, WA: Exit International US Ltd, 2011)
Atul Gawande, BEING MORTAL: MEDICINE AND WHAT MATTERS IN THE END (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014).
Given this focus on public policy rather than constitutional law, Rao’s argument that philosophy has no role to play in judicial resolution of issues like PAS, even if it has merit, is irrelevant here. See Neomi Rao, A Backdoor to Policy Making: The Use of Philosophers by the Supreme Court, and Thorn Brooks, Does Philosophy Deserve a Place at the Supreme Court? in Thom Brooks, ed., RAWLS AND LAW (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012)
As Mill wrote, “[T]he only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, physical or mental, is not a sufficient warrant.” John Stuart Mill, ON LIBERTY (Hamondsworth, UK: Penguin Classics, 1974)
Brief of the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and the American Psychiatric Association et al. as amicus curiae in Support of Petitioners in Vacco v. Quill, in Susan M. Behuniak & Arthur G. Svenson, PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE: THE ANATOMY OF A CONSTITUTIONAL LAW ISSUE (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003)
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© 2015 Martin D. Carcieri
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Carcieri, M.D. (2015). Assisted Suicide and the Right to Die. In: Applying Rawls in the Twenty-First Century. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137446961_6
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