• About the Current Issue: The Last Choice: Death and Dignity in the United States

Lead Essay

• Physician Assisted Death in America: Ethics, Law, and Policy Conflicts by Howard Ball

  Howard Ball reviews the recent history of physician-assisted death (PAD) in America. He argues that it is a fairly direct outgrowth of other trends in our society, including the medicalization of death, the movement toward palliative end-of-life care, and the longstanding concern for individual autonomy that has characterized American legal and political thinking. Social values evolve, and he argues that allowing physicians to assist patients in dying will eventually come to be an accepted value as well, as a matter of compassion for those who are suffering.

Response Essays

• The Decriminalization, and Medicalization, of Suicide by Philip Nitschke

  Philip Nitschke looks back at the Baby Boom generation. All through their lives, they have broken the mold, in women's rights, contraception, divorce, and many other areas. Now, as they approach retirement and the end of life, they are again breaking the mold. Death isn't what it used to be, and a long, drawn-out, medicalized death may not be to everyone's liking. Yet the law has often lagged behind, and one might even question, with Nitschke: Why do we need law, or physicians, in deliberately ending our own lives?

• Say No to Physician Assisted Suicide by Patrick Lee

  Patrick Lee urges us to observe the difference between committing suicide and foregoing burdensome treatment. Committing or assisting a suicide both disrespect the intrinsic good of human life and are objectively morally wrong. We rightly abhor pain and suffering, but this sentiment should not lead us to attack the person who is experiencing the pain and suffering. If we do, the lives of the elderly and disabled throughout our society will be devalued, with grave consequences for all.

The Conversation

• Responses to Nitschke and Lee by Howard Ball
• Reply on the Moral Issue by Patrick Lee
• Reply on the Legal Issue by Patrick Lee
• The Moral and Legal Issues by Howard Ball
• The Dangerous Alleged Benefit of Dying by Patrick Lee
• Apprehending One's Situation by Howard Ball

Related at Cato

• Brief amicus curiae in Gonzales v. Oregon, July 18, 2005 (pdf)