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Euthanasia is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.
The right to die is a concept based on the opinion that human beings are entitled to end their lives or undergo voluntary euthanasia. Possession of this right is often bestowed with the understanding that a person with a terminal illness, or in incurable pain has access to assisted suicide. The question of who, if anyone, may be empowered to make this decision is often the subject of debate.
Sue Rodriguez was a Canadian right-to-die activist. In August 1991, she was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and was given two to five years to live. She ultimately made the decision to end her life and she sought the assistance of a doctor to that end, leading to a legal battle. She lost her case in front of the Supreme Court of Canada, but took her own life with the help of an anonymous doctor on February 12, 1994. She is cited as an important figure in the eventual legalization of medical assistance in dying in Canada.
The Terri Schiavo case was a series of court and legislative actions in the United States from 1998 to 2005, regarding the care of Theresa Marie Schiavo, a woman in an irreversible persistent vegetative state. Schiavo's husband and legal guardian argued that Schiavo would not have wanted prolonged artificial life support without the prospect of recovery, and, in 1998, he elected to remove her feeding tube. Schiavo's parents disputed her husband's assertions and challenged Schiavo's medical diagnosis, arguing in favor of continuing artificial nutrition and hydration. The highly publicized and prolonged series of legal challenges presented by her parents, which ultimately involved state and federal politicians up to the level of George W. Bush, the then U.S. president, caused a seven-year delay before Schiavo's feeding tube was ultimately removed.
Stephanie Keene, better known by the pseudonym Baby K, was an anencephalic baby who became the center of a major American court case and a debate among bioethicists.
Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, 497 U.S. 261 (1990), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States involving a young adult incompetent. The first "right to die" case ever heard by the Court, Cruzan was argued on December 6, 1989, and decided on June 25, 1990. In a 5–4 decision, the Court affirmed the earlier ruling of the Supreme Court of Missouri and ruled in favor of the State of Missouri, finding it was acceptable to require "clear and convincing evidence" of a patient's wishes for removal of life support. A significant outcome of the case was the creation of advance health directives.
The legislative, executive, and judicial branches, of both the United States federal government and the State of Florida, were involved in the case of Terri Schiavo. In November 1998 Michael Schiavo, husband of Terri Schiavo, first sought permission to remove his wife's feeding tube. Schiavo had suffered brain damage in February 1990, and in February 2000 had been ruled by a Florida circuit court to be in a persistent vegetative state. Her feeding tube was removed first on April 26, 2001, but was reinserted two days later on an appeal by her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.
Voluntary euthanasia is the purposeful ending of another person's life at their request, in order to relieve them of suffering. Voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) have been the focus of intense debate in the 21st century, surrounding the idea of a right to die. Some forms of voluntary euthanasia are legal in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Spain.
Oceana Wardlaw Martin Snead also known as Ocey Snead, was an American woman who was drugged and drowned in East Orange, New Jersey by her own family to collect $32,000 in insurance money.
Rodriguez v British Columbia (AG), [1993] 3 SCR 519 is a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision where the prohibition of assisted suicide was challenged as contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter") by a terminally ill woman, Sue Rodriguez. In a 5–4 decision, the Court upheld the provision in the Criminal Code.
Involuntary euthanasia is illegal in all 50 states of the United States. Assisted suicide is legal in 10 jurisdictions in the US: Washington, D.C. and the states of California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Washington. The status of assisted suicide is disputed in Montana, though currently authorized per the Montana Supreme Court's ruling in Baxter v. Montana that "nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or Montana statutes [indicates] that physician aid in dying is against public policy."
The legality of euthanasia varies between countries and territories. Efforts to change government policies on euthanasia of humans in the 20th and 21st centuries have met with limited success in Western countries. Human euthanasia policies have also been developed by a variety of NGOs, most advocacy organisations although medical associations express a range of perspectives, and supporters of palliative care broadly oppose euthanasia.
Consuelo Bland Marshall is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Whitny Braun de Lobatón is an American bioethicist, professor, investigative researcher, documentary filmmaker and podcaster who has been featured on the Discovery Channel as the host and executive producer of "Undiscovered: The Lost Lincoln" and co-hosts the podcast "The Murders at Starved Rock with Andy Hale". She has also been featured on NPR and the National Geographic Channel television program "Taboo". She has served as a contributor for the Huffington Post. Her major academic work is centered in the fields of bioethics and public health and has focused on the Jain practice of Sallekhana and the Parsi practice of Dakhmenashini. She is currently the director of the master's in bioethics and professor of bioethics at Loma Linda University.
Lantz v. Coleman is a Connecticut superior court case that addresses the constitutionality of forcibly feeding prison inmates on hunger strikes. The court ruled in favor of force feeding.
Lynette "Lynn" Gilderdale, also known on the internet as Jessie Oliver, was a British woman with a severely diminished quality of life from chronic fatigue syndrome who died by suicide after taking a morphine overdose after she decided she no longer wanted to endure the pain from the illness. She was assisted by her mother, Bridget Kathleen "Kay" Gilderdale, who was subsequently charged with attempted murder and was eventually given a one-year conditional discharge after admitting to assisting with her daughter's suicide.
Betancourt v. Trinitas Hospital, 1 A.3d 823 (2010), is a New Jersey legal case concerning whether a hospital may unilaterally refuse care to a patient on the grounds that it is futile to prolong the person's life because there is little chance that the condition will improve. It has become the focal point of the ongoing debate surrounding denial of care among professional bioethicists.
Nicholas C. Creede was an American prospector famous for discovering the Holy Moses Amethyst vein and other mining properties near Creede, Colorado in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
Baby M was the pseudonym of an Australian girl named Allison who was born with severe birth defects, whose treatment and eventual death caused significant controversy and international discussion about the medical ethics of disabled newborns. Right to Life activists accused her parents and the hospital of murdering the infant, leading to a lengthy legal inquest.
Matter of O'Connor, 1988 was a court case brought before the New York Court of Appeals.
References
- Miller, Franklin and Diane Myer. "Voluntary Death: A Comparison of Terminal Dehydration and Physician Assisted Suicide" Thomas Mappes and Jane Zembaty Eds. Social Ethics (6th Ed). Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002. 99-104.
- Gregory Pence. Chapter 2, "Elizabeth Bouvia," pp. 19–24, Classic Cases in Medical Ethics| (8th Ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2017).
- ↑ Jonsen, Albert R., Ph.D. "Involuntary Treatment in Medicine", Annual Review of Medicine , Volume 37, page 41, February, 1986.
- ↑ The case can be found at: 179 Cal.App.3d 1127, 225 Cal.Rptr. 297 (1986).
- ↑ "The Reluctant Survivor : 9 Years After Helping Her Fight for the Right to die, Elizabeth Bouvia's Lawyer and Confidante Killed Himself--Leaving Her Shaken and Living the Life She Dreaded". Los Angeles Times . 13 September 1992.
- ↑ "Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System - Elizabeth Bouvia". Archived from the original on 2007-09-29.
- ↑ "Force-Feeding Tube Gone, Bouvia Still Plans Suicide". Los Angeles Times . 18 April 1986.