Right to Die, The

The claim that persons have a legal or moral right to die when and how they choose. The phrase itself is ambiguous and used in many different ways so as to have various moral implications. Proponents of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia often use the phrase in an attempt to justify these practices. Legally, the phrase is given a broader context and includes the right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment as well as any supposed legal right to physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. In the case of Nancy Cruzan, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no protected "right to die" under the due process or equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. In Washington v. Glucksberg, the Supreme court affirmed that there is no constitutionally protected right to die and explicitly left it up to individual states to legislate and determine how to adjudicate end-of-life issues. Thus, individual states can decide for themselves whether to make physician-assisted suicide legal and whether to require clear and convincing evidence or a best interests standard for end-of-life decisions concerning incompetent patients. The Supreme Court did, however, maintain that medical treatment for which informed consent has not been granted constitutes "battery." Thus, while there is no constitutionally protected right to die, there is a constitutionally protected right to refuse medical treatment even if that refusal hastens death.

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