Angelo Andro M.

Suan
LLB- 4

Whether or not, the right to die is an inherent right or a statutory right.

The right to die is a moral principle based on the belief that a human being is entitled to
commit suicide or to undergo voluntary euthanasia. Possession of this right is often understood
to mean that a person with a terminal illness should be allowed to commit suicide or assisted
suicide or to decline life-prolonging treatment, where a disease would otherwise prolong their
suffering to an identical result. The question of who, if anyone, should be empowered to make
these decisions is often central to debate.
On the above mentioned issue, I stand that it is a statutory right, based on the following
arguments:

In two cases from 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that physician-assisted suicide is not a
protected liberty interest under the Constitution. For the most part, states have reaffirmed deeply-
rooted bans on assisted suicide. Quoting another case, the court recognized that if something has
been practiced for two hundred years by common consent, it will “need a strong case for the
Fourteenth Amendment to affect it.” The court also noted the danger of allowing policy
preferences of the members of the court to subtly transform constitutional law.

Based on the history of assisted suicide laws in this country, the Supreme Court ruled that there
is no fundamental liberty interest in a right to assisted suicide that is protected by the due process
clause. Moreover, the ban on assisted suicide, as set forth in Washington’s law, was rationally
related to legitimate government interests. Those government interests include:

1. To preserve life

2. To prevent suicide

3. To avoid the involvement of third parties and the use of arbitrary, unfair, or undue
influence

4. To protect the integrity of the medical profession

5. To avoid future movement toward euthanasia and other abuses

The Supreme Court did not, however, ban assisted suicide. The opinion recognized the right of
states to engage “in serious, thoughtful examinations of physician-assisted suicide.”
However, there are countries which legalize voluntary euthanasia, among these countries are:

Netherlands:
The Netherlands legalized voluntary euthanasia in 2001 and is one of the few countries in the
world to have done so. Under current Dutch law, euthanasia by doctors is only legal in cases
of "hopeless and unbearable" suffering. In practice this means that it is limited to those suffering
from serious medical conditions (including mental illness) and in considerable suffering like
pain, hypoxia or exhaustion. Helping somebody to commit suicide without meeting the
qualifications of the current Dutch euthanasia law is illegal. [8]These criteria concern the patient's
request, the patient's suffering (unbearable and hopeless), the information provided to the patient,
the presence of reasonable alternatives, consultation of another physician and the applied method
of ending life.[8]
In February 2010 a citizens' initiative called Uit Vrije Wil (Out of Free Will) further demanded
that all Dutch people over 70 who feel tired of life should have the right to professional help in
ending it. The organization, initiated by Milly van Stiphout and Yvonne van Baarle, started
collecting signatures in support of this proposed change in Dutch legislation. A number of
prominent Dutch citizens supported the initiative, including former ministers and artists, legal
scholars and physicians. Among them were former politicians Frits Bolkestein, Hedy
d'Ancona and Jan Terlouw, as well as television personality Mies Bouwman.[9][10][11] This
initiative has never been legalised.
Canada:
As of August 2011 a B.C. Supreme Court judge had been requested to speed up a right-to die
lawsuit so that Gloria Taylor could have a doctor assist her in committing suicide. She suffered
from Lou Gehrig's disease.[12] She died of an infection in 2012.
A B.C. Civil Liberties lawsuit is representing six plaintiffs and challenges the laws that make it a
criminal offence to assist seriously and incurably ill individuals to die with dignity.[citation needed]
On February 6, 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that denying the right to assisted
suicide is unconstitutional. The court’s ruling limits physician-assisted suicides to “a competent
adult person who clearly consents to the termination of life and has a grievous and irremediable
medical condition, including an illness, disease or disability, that causes enduring suffering that
is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition.” The ruling was
suspended for 12 months to allow the Canadian parliament to draft a new, constitutional law to
replace the existing one.[13]
The court decision includes a requirement that there must be stringent limits that are
“scrupulously monitored.” This will require the death certificate to be completed by an
independent medical examiner, not the treating physician, to ensure the accuracy of reporting the
cause of death.[14]
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) reported that not all doctors were willing to help a
patient die. However, the belief in late 2015 was that no physician would be forced to do so but
the CMA was offering educational sessions to members as to the process that would be used.[15]
Since 17 June, 2016, legislation passed both houses of the Parliament of Canada and the
formality Royal Assent, to legally allow euthanasia within Canada.[16]
New Zealand
Euthanasia is illegal in New Zealand. In 2015, lawyer and cancer sufferer Lecretia
Seales brought a case to the High Court to challenge New Zealand law for her right to die with
the assistance of her GP, asking for a declaration that her GP would not risk conviction.[17][18]
The term 'right to die' has been interpreted in a number of ways, including issues of suicide,
passive euthanasia, active euthanasia, assisted suicide, and physician-assisted suicide. [19] As
health of citizens is considered a police power left for individual states to regulate, it was not
until 1997 that the US Supreme Court made a ruling on the issue of assisted suicide and one's
right to die. In 1997 the Supreme Court heard two appeals arguing that New York and
Washington statutes that made physician assisted suicide a felony violated the equal protection
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[20] In a unanimous vote, the Court held that there was no
constitutional right to physician assisted suicide and upheld state bans on assisted suicide. While
in New York this has maintained statutes banning physician assisted suicide, the Court's decision
also left it open for other states to decide whether they would allow physician assisted suicide or
not.

Other States in US:

Since 1997, three states in the US have passed assisted suicide laws. Oregon, Washington, and
Vermont, in 1997, 2009, and 2013, respectively, have laws that provide a protocol for the
practice of physician assisted suicide.[21] The law in these three states allows terminally ill adult
patients to seek lethal medication from their physicians. In 2009, the Montana Supreme Court
ruled that nothing in state law prohibits physician-assisted suicide and provides legal protection
for physicians in the case that they write a prescription for lethal medication upon patient
request. In California, the governor signed a controversial physician assisted-suicide bill in
October 2015 that had been passed during a special legislative session intended to address Medi-
Cal funding,[22] after it had been defeated during the regular legislative session. [23] Because the
bill was passed during a special session, it will not take effect until three months after that
session ends. The law went into effect in June 2016.[24][25]
In early 2014, a New Mexico Second District Judge Nan Nash ruled that terminally ill patients
have the right to aid in dying under the state constitution, i.e. making it legal for a doctor to
prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a terminally ill patient.[26] The ultimate decision will be
made with the outcome of New Mexico's Attorney General's appeal to the ruling.
In 2006, in Gonzales v Oregon, the Court decided another right-to-die case, although this one
primarily on administrative law grounds, not constitutional grounds. Voting 6 to 3, the Court
ruled that Attorney General Ashcroft exceeded his powers under the Controlled Substances Act
when he threatened prosecution against Oregon doctors prescribing lethal drugs under that state's
Death with Dignity Act. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy concluded that regulation of
medical practices was primarily a job for the states and that Ashcroft failed to recognize "the
background principles of our federal system."