Pro

“[P]hysicians, in carrying out their ethical duty to relieve the pain and suffering of their terminally-ill patients, should be legally permitted to accede to the desire of a patient to hasten death when the patient’s decision is voluntarily reached, a patient is competent to make the decision, and the patient has been fully informed of the diagnosis and prognosis of an incurable, fatal disease which has progressed to the final stages…

The right to physician-assisted suicide should be recognized by this Court as a fundamental right… Moreover, the amicus group agrees with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Quill that the denial of physician-assisted suicide is a denial of equal protection to terminally-ill patients who do not have the option of hastening death by requesting the removal of life support systems.”

Oct. 1996