Right to Die

antithetical —to all we believe in as physicians within a civilized society.”
    People shifted in their seats, many coughing. One loud sneeze produced a collective low laugh.
    “As some of you may know, we have a system in Massachusetts under which the relatives of a terribly sick patient can petition a court of law to rule on the administering or withholding of certain life-sustaining processes. With all respect to the profession of the next speaker, I do not understand how a state like Massachusetts, which has outlawed within its judicial system the death penalty for even the most heinous crime, can then turn to that same judicial system and say, ‘Please impose the death penalty on a patient whose only transgression is to have fallen sick.’ A patient who is typically comatose and who may present”— Eisenberg looked up at us for the first time—“as Reverend Givens so eloquently stated, a, uh... excuse me.” Eisenberg ran a finger down the page... a burden, may present a burden both financial and emotional, to the family and the treatment delivery system. I am troubled with becoming an advocate and, worse, an instrument for the death of one patient so that another patient, who I believe might benefit more from treatment of a limited availability, could now be accommodated.
    “However, I am even more troubled by a system in which such decisions are made secretly, without even benefit of a logically flawed justice system. I am most troubled by the very real possibility of people taking the law into their own hands in a way that is not only illegal but immoral and would undermine the very protections of the individual upon which our society is based. Each of us is only as safe as his or her neighbor. For any of us to be safe, all of us must be safe.”
    Eisenberg looked up again. “Uh, thank you for your attention.”
    Strained applause died away before the doctor resumed his seat. Nobody likes to be read to.
    Olivia Jurick came to the high mike. On tiptoe she said, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, Professor Maisy Andrus.”
    Andrus stood smoothly, striding to the podium with no notes. Engaging the audience, she looked from section to section until there was no noise in the lecture hall, not a cough, not a rustle.
    Then, “I stand before you tonight for a very simple reason: I killed my husband. Under the laws of most countries, I was guilty of a crime. Under the laws of Spain , where the incident took place, I was guilty of a worse crime: as a wife, I committed parricide, the killing of the male head of the family.
    “Well, what I did was no crime in my mind or heart, and I suspect it would be none in yours either. My goal is to have the feelings in those minds and hearts reflected in rational laws which permit society to evolve, as it must, if we are to survive as a species in close contact with each other. Despite Reverend Givens’s impassioned presentation, the law is not some capital-letter, quasireligious absolute. Despite Dr. Eisenberg’s dispassionate presentation, the law is not some scientifically logical formula into which factors need merely be inserted to produce uniformly correct answers.
    “The doctor alluded to suicide. The original purpose behind the prohibition of suicide was the same as that against male masturbation: to promote the continuation of our species. Given the size of the global population and its rate of reproduction, the rule against suicide is no longer needed to ensure that survival. Indeed, we are now presented with the converse problem.
    “In 1988, two-thirds of the doctors polled by the American Medical Association reported being involved in decisions to withhold or withdraw treatment, and the American Hospital Association estimates that seventy percent of hospital deaths now occur because of family and medical termination of treatment. In response to these statistics, courts in twenty states ruled on the right to die, the Supreme Court of the United States recently confirming the constitutional basis of that right.
    “The law can, and must, take into account aspects of our changing society. Religion depends on prayer, medicine on technology. But when our religious views become so entrenched and our medicine so sophisticated, we all simply must recognize a basic truth. Each-and every one of us has certain rights of person, certain rights of spirit, that neither religion nor medicine nor a government supportive of both should be able to take away. Such is the