RELIGION & SOCIETY
Who has the right to end a life?

The debate over death and dying is very much alive with the Bush administration's efforts to overturn Oregon's Death with Dignity Act and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's attempts to save a Florida law designed to keep a brain-damaged woman on life support. A recent decision in the Netherlands to euthanize sick infants leaves caregivers, theologians and ethicists pondering the most profound of religious questions: When is it morally permissible to end a life, and who has the right to decide?

The Sea Inside, a film released in December 2004 about a quadriplegic activist fighting for the right to die, is the latest act in a larger drama being played out in hospitals and courtrooms. On the federal front, in November 2004 the Bush administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to toss out the 1997 Death with Dignity Act in Oregon, the only state that allows a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a terminally ill patient of sound mind who makes the request orally and in writing. The administration had argued that the act violates federal drug law, but a lower court disagreed.

In December 2004, the Florida Supreme Court declined to uphold a law designed to keep a brain-damaged woman alive. Jeb Bush has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.

Much of the domestic debate on euthanasia is fueled by practices in Europe, where the Netherlands and Belgium have legalized euthanasia. In late 2004, Groningen Academic Hospital in Amsterdam announced that it had a new plan for ending the life of terminally ill infants with severe medical conditions. The hospital staff caused a further uproar when it said it had already begun, with the parents' permission, euthanizing babies with extreme spina bifida. For supporters it's a humane act designed to prevent suffering for the families and their children. For critics it's the downhill side of a slippery slope.

Questions for reporters

• How are religious leaders, theologians, hospital chaplains and bioethicists in your area weighing in on right-to-die issues, from passive euthanasia to active assistance in terminating life?
• Do they believe that the Supreme Court should overturn Oregon's right-to-die law?
• How do they feel about the recent decision in the Netherlands to euthanize sick infants?
• What kind of end-of-life decisions are families making every day in your area, and to whom do they turn for guidance?
• What kinds of moral issues do health-care workers face when administering pain medication or withholding food or hydration from a dying patient?
• What issues do families and health-care workers face when dealing with people with dementia and Alzheimer's?
• Should depressed people be allowed to end their lives?
• Should cost of medical treatment be a factor in deciding whether to terminate a life?
• What religious and secular groups are leading the opposition to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in your region?
• What groups are actively supporting legislation to allow physician-assisted suicide?

Why it matters

The euthanasia issue raises the most profound questions about who has the right to die, who has the right to help them - and who has the right to choose who lives and dies. Not a day goes by when a country, state, doctor, hospice worker, theologian, ethicist or family member doesn't wrestle with whether to allow passive or active euthanasia and whether to challenge doctors or patients who take the law into their own hands. With the Bush administration taking on the Oregon statute and a Dutch hospital allowing newborns to be euthanized, the issue is once again presenting a challenge to religious leaders and ethicists who must weigh competing claims of compassion.

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UPDATED MAR. 31, 2005

Terri Schiavo died in a Florida hospice on March 31, 2005, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed.

• Read a March 31, 2005 Associated Press story published in USA Today, "Terri Schiavo dies in hospice."

• Read a March 31, 2005 Christian Science Monitor article, "The Terri Schiavo legacy."

During the same week, the Vatican announced that Pope John Paul II was being fed through a nasal feeding tube.
• Read a March 31, 2005 Washington Post article, "Pope's Feeding Tube Brings End-of-Life Questions Closer," posted by Yahoo!News.

UPDATED MAR. 21, 2005

On Mar. 21, 2005, President Bush signed a bill giving federal courts jurisdiction in the case of brain-damaged Florida woman Terri Schiavo, making it possible for her parents to file suit to continue her medical treatment and feeding.
• Read a March 21, 2005 New York Times article, "Congress Passes and Bush Signs Legislation on Schiavo Case."
• Read a March 21, 2005 Washington Post article, "Congress Passes Schiavo Measure."
• Read a March 21, 2005 Associated Press article posted by ABC, "Bush Signs Bill That May Let Schiavo Live."
• Read a March 21, 2005 Christian Science Monitor analysis, "Why Schiavo is a cause célèbre."

The terms

The terms are tricky to define and often used interchangeably. But it is clear that many people support physician-assisted suicide while rejecting active euthanasia.
Euthanasia - The act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy; also known as mercy killing.
Active euthanasia - The delivery of a lethal dose of medication to a terminally ill person.
Passive euthanasia - The withholding of potentially life-saving medical treatment.
Physician-assisted suicide - When a physician facilitates a patient's death by providing the means and information to enable the patient to take his or her own life.
Euthanasia with no "free will" - When a physician decides whether or not to end the life of a person who suffers from a serious illness or medical condition.

Click the map for interview sources in your state and region

National sources

SUPPORTERS OF PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE AND/OR EUTHANASIA
• Timothy Quill, professor of medicine, psychiatry and the humanities at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, was the lead physician plaintiff in the 1977 New York state legal case challenging the prohibition of physician-assisted suicide. He is co-editor of Physician-Assisted Dying: The Case for Palliative Care and Patient Choice (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004) and author of A Midwife Through the Dying Process: Stories of Healing and Hard Choices at the End of Life (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Contact 585-273-1154 (prefers not to be contacted by email).
• Barbara Coombs Lee is chief petitioner of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. She is the CEO of Compassion & Choices, formed when Compassion in Dying Federation, based in Portland, merged with End-of-Life Choices, formerly known as the Hemlock Society. Contact through Claire Simons, media relations: 503-221-9556, sc@compassionindying.org/bcl.php.
• Dr. Robert Brody is a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and chief of the Pain Consultation Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital. A former hospice director, he is a Compassion & Choices board member. Contact through Claire Simons, 503-221-9556, sc@compassionindying.org.
• Peter Singer, Princeton University bioethics professor, caused an outcry when he advocated euthanasia for those born with severe mental disabilities. Contact 609-258-2202, psinger@princeton.edu (contact until late April 2005 via email only).
• Mayer Morganroth is attorney for Jack Kevorkian, the physician who is serving a 10- to 25-year sentence for aiding in the death of a man suffering from end-stage Lou Gehrig's disease. Contact 248-355-3084, mmorganroth@morganrothlaw.com.
• Margaret Pabst Battin is a University of Utah philosophy professor and a leading figure in the public debate on end-of-life issues. She has written extensively on religious and ethical concerns in physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia and has researched active euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands. Her books include Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die (Oxford, expected March 2005) and The Least Worst Death: Essays on Bioethics on the End of Life (Oxford, 1994). Contact 801-581-6608, battin@utah.edu.

OPPONENTS OF PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE AND/OR EUTHANASIA
• Wesley J. Smith, San Francisco-based attorney, columnist and anti-euthanasia activist, believes the Dutch have lost their moral compass. He is the author of Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder (Times Books/Random House, 1997). Contact 510-886-8609, wjs@wesleyjsmith.com.
• Diane Coleman, an attorney, is the founder of Not Dead Yet, a Forest Park, Ill.-based organization of people with disabilities who actively oppose euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Contact 708-209-1500, DianeColeman@progresscil.org.
• F. Michael Gloth, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, believes that calling an act physician-assisted suicide "makes it no less suicide and no less murder." Gloth has written extensively about pain management in the elderly. Contact 410-526-1490, mgloth@adelphia.net.
• Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is a bioethicist who writes frequently on euthanasia. Contact 202-541-3070, rdoerflinger@usccb.org (prefers calls).
• Daniel Callahan is a bioethicist at The Hastings Center, a leading figure in the public debate over euthanasia and the author of The Troubled Dream of Life: In Search of a Peaceful Death (Simon & Schuster, 1993). He opposes physician-assisted suicide and has written that "the application of mercy killing has no logical boundaries." Contact 845-424-4040 ext. 222, callahand@thehastingscenter.org.
• Rabbi David Novak, University of Toronto Jewish studies professor, believes that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are contrary to the teachings of Jews and Christians. Contact by email only, david.novak@utoronto.ca.

Background

• Read Oregon’s "Death with Dignity" law and see a page from the Oregon Depart of Human Services that links to reports on physician-assisted suicide.
• Read a backgrounder on the case issued in September 2005 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
• Read a transcript of "The Right to Assisted Suicide?: Oregon Goes to the Supreme Court," a Sept. 29, 2005, discussion co-sponsored by the Pew Forum that featured M. Edward Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Robert Raben of The Raben Group.
• Read a transcript of "Right to Die? Legal, Ethical and Public Policy Implications," a May 2005 public discussion sponsored by the Pew Forum that featured Daniel W. Brock of Harvard Medical School, R. Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin Law School, Robert P. George of Princeton University and Carlos Gómez of Capital Hospice.

RELIGIOUS POSITIONS
• To find out how religious groups weigh in, read a 2000 essay, "Euthanasia and Religion" by Courtney Campbell, Oregon State University philosophy professor. Campbell says there continue to be, in 2005, five basic denominational positions in regard to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia:

• Euthanasia.com posts and links to position papers by numerous religious groups, from the Salvation Army to the Sikhs.
• AboutBuddhism.com describes a Buddhist perspective on euthanasia.

POLLS
• See opinion polls on assisted suicide posted at PollingReport.com.
• Read the summary of a poll released Jan. 5, 2006, by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. It found that 46 percent of Americans support the right to assisted suicide, while 45 percent oppose the practice.
• A Nov. 24, 2004, CBS News/New York Times poll found that public support for physician-assisted suicide is at the lowest point since the poll began doing surveys on the topic in 1990. In the 2004 poll, 46 percent said physician-assisted suicide should be allowed, and 45 percent said it should not.
• A March 13-17, 2001, ABC News/Beliefnet Poll found that 48 percent of people thought it should be illegal for doctors to help terminally ill patients commit suicide by giving them a prescription for fatal drugs.

COURT CASES
• For a summary of pro and con arguments and a discussion of court cases, read "Ethics in Medicine: Physician-Assisted Suicide" by the University of Washington School of Medicine.
• A site from the University of San Diego lists court decisions (scroll toward bottom).

ARTICLES
• Read a Dec. 1, 2004, CNN story about Florida Gov. Jeb Bush asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Florida law that allows a brain-damaged woman’s feeding tube to be removed. The Florida Supreme Court struck down the law.
• Read a Nov. 30, 2004, MSNBC story about a Dutch hospital proposing guidelines for terminally ill babies.
• Read a Nov. 10, 2004, Washington Post story about the Bush Administration asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block Oregon’s assisted suicide law.
• Read a Dec. 20, 2004 San Jose Mercury News story about California legislators who plan to introduce an assisted-suicide law like Oregon’s.
• Read a Nov. 24, 2004, CBS News story about the debate over assisted suicide.

OTHER BACKGROUND
• Euthanasia.com, an anti-euthanasia site, contains numerous articles on topics such as physician-assisted suicide in Oregon, euthanasia in the Netherlands and statements by religious groups and medical organizations.
• The Death with Dignity National Center supports Oregon's physician-assisted suicide legislation.
• The National Right-to-Life Committee opposes euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
• Baptists for Life includes material on euthanasia and a column on bioethics by "the Biblical Bioethics Advisor."