Physician-assisted suicide: 'slippery slope' or civil right?

The issue of physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill has once more landed on the front pages of the nation's newspapers due to four major court rulings earlier this year. Both supporters and opponents of physician-assisted suicide agree that the rulings are likely to have a major impact, although they disagree as to the effects. In the eyes of those who oppose physician-assisted suicide, the proverbial "slippery "slippery slope" has become a sheet of glazed ice, slick and dangerous. In the eyes of those who support the death-with-dignity movement, the rulings were a resounding triumph for civil rights. The language in both cases has been similar to the response that Roe v. Wade provoked from abortion opponents and supporters, and for good reason: both issues touch on those most intimate of human concerns--life and death, tradition and innovation, medicine and religion. And considering that state authorities have already promised to appeal two of the rulings to the U.S. Supreme Court, the issue of physician-assisted suicide is likely to remain on the front pages for many years to come.

In many respects, the modern death-with-dignity debate is an extension of the ethical, legal, and medical arguments surrounding the New Jersey Supreme Court's unanimous ruling on March 31, 1976, that allowed Julia and Joseph Quinlan to remove their d...

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