It’s My Body and I’ll Die If I Want To!

            We can say all we want about the newest, fastest, lightest: IPhone, IPad, Tablet, Google Glass etc… but the simplest technology is all too often overlooked and outshined by plastic electronics. Technology and science that are on the cutting edge of medical breakthroughs, space exploration, and entertainment take center stage in our capitalistic sales driven world. It’s ironic that we stand in awe waiting for such new advances and overlook technology that impacts (for better or worse) something that we will all one day face. Death is something that we do not want to think about or deal with until that time comes. Yes, estate planning is an area of the law that many engage in while they are perfectly healthy and viable, but that is centered on money and assets. Technology/medical practices now exist in which a person can elect to die when they so choose. The slippery slope comes into play here, because the technology exists, but so do laws. As of right now the laws governing physician-assisted suicide makes the prospect of choosing when to die a complex endeavor.

Back in the day, people were much more likely to die at home as opposed to a hospital.[1] As medicine and technology have advanced, so too has the life expectancy of people in highly developed countries. For example, in the United States the average life expectancy in 1960, according to the Census Bureau, was 69.77 years.[2] In 2011, the average was 78.64 years.[3] In a 2012 CBS New York article, titled Could The Next Generation Live To Be 150? Experts: Huge Breakthroughs In Science And Technology Could Make It A Reality, Geriatrician Dr. Joyce Fogel said that, “There was a time when people didn’t live to older age because they died from the flu.[4] We’re doing much better. In 1900, when somebody was born, they were expected to live to the age of 50.”[5] Fogel goes on to say that “scientists are making huge advances in the lab,growing new organs from adult human stem cells, creating body parts with 3D printers, and using gene therapy to successfully treat diseases like blindness and leukemia.”[6] With all new technology seemingly centered on extending life, the technology surrounding death seems to be a topic that is avoided. The explanation for this avoidance may originate from two separate stimuli, the first being that people just don’t want to think about death until they are at that point, and the second being that the current state of the law (state, and Supreme Court decisions) seem to deter or prevent individuals from seeking the use of life ending technologies.

According to Katherine A. Chamberlain, Looking for A “Good Death”: The Elderly Terminally Ill’s Right to Die by Physician-Assisted Suicide, 17 Elder LJ 61, 65 [2009], there are three types of assisted death.[7] The first being where a doctor “actively injects the patient with medicine causing death.” The second is where a doctor does not act, thus withholding life-saving/extending care (hydration and/or nutrients).[8] The third method assists with suicide by offering “medical knowledge,” but the doctor refrains from “actively” assisting.[9] Accordingly, Chamberlain points out that the varying methods of assistance matter in terms of the law. For example, in the Supreme Court case Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, the Supreme Court held that that the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause also affords competent patients a “constitutionally protected liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment.” In two cases decided on the same day, Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill, the Supreme Court further addresses the issues surrounding assisted suicide. In Glucksberg, the Court held that because the “Due Process Clause does not provide a fundamental liberty interest” in physician-assisted suicide, a Washington statute was not unconstitutional. The Court further held that the statute was “reasonably related”to furthering Washington’s compelling state interests, including protecting life, preventing suicide, preserving the integrity of the medical profession, protecting vulnerable groups (such as children and the elderly), and avoiding the slippery slope to voluntary and involuntary euthanasia.”In Quill, the Court upheld the distinction between refusing life-sustaining treatment and physician-assisted suicide, asserting that “[e]veryone, regardless of physical condition, is entitled, if competent, to refuse unwanted lifesaving medical treatment; (but) no one is permitted to assist a suicide.”

Currently this issue is left primarily to the states to regulate. Just last month an article in the Huffington Post, titled Judge Rules to Allow Physician Assisted Suicide in New Mexico, made reference to the recent development in which “A New Mexico judge has ruled that terminally ill, mentally competent patients have the right to get a doctor to end their lives.[10] The ruling by Judge Nan Nash of the New Mexico Second Judicial District would make New Mexico the fifth state to allow doctors to prescribe fatal prescriptions to terminal patients.”[11]