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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!yale-com!mwolf
From: mwolf@yale-com.UUCP (Anne G. Wolf)
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: The right to commit suicide
Message-ID: <2337@yale-com.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Nov-83 13:43:00 EST
Article-I.D.: yale-com.2337
Posted: Fri Nov  4 13:43:00 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 7-Nov-83 01:30:00 EST
Lines: 44

Does a terminally ill patient have the right to commit suicide?


I recall a doctor who had often had to deal with terminally ill patients
saying that when caring for someone who was terminally ill, it was necessary
to choose between 3 ways of dealing with things, and that it was best if a
patient make it known to his or her family, while still mentally fit to do
so, which alternative was preferable.  The 3 ways were:
    1) Prolong life as much as possible
    2) Maintain comfort as much as possible
    3) Withdraw all medical treatment and let nature take its course.
According to this philosophy, a patient would certainly have the right to
ask that medication be withheld.  However, I do not think that something which
a healthy person would require, such as food, would be withheld by this doctor.
Therefore, the right to suicide would depend on the method.

Incidentally, choosing could also involve some compromise between the ways,
and my choice if I were the patient would probably be a compromise between 1
and 2. Unless comfort were impossible, I probably wouldn't commit suicide.


Legally speaking, I recall a couple of different cases in which parents or
doctors tried to withhold food from extremely deformed infants.  I remember,
specifically, the case of a doctor who had food withheld from his siamese twins,
because they were joined at the chest and would smother one another as they
grew. I do not remember whether he was permitted to let the twins starve.
The results of these cases (which I do not remember) would set the precedent
for the woman's case which is described in the article to which I am responding


My feelings about other people's right to suicide on this would depend on the
degree of unpleasantness of the patient's life.  If there were constant pain
which could not be controlled by medication, I would permit suicide if the
desire to die was consistent for more than a week.  Pain-controlling
medication here might include something which would be harmful in the long
term, such as a powerful and addictive narcotic.  If the patient isn't
going to live long enough for the harmful effects to matter, short term relief
is more important.  If the end was comfortable and the only problem was
that dieing was depressing, then I would probably prevent the patient from
doing herself in.  I realize that this division is subjective.  I cannot think
of an objective way to distinguish, and I certainly wouldn't be able to make
a law about this distinction.

    Mary-Anne Wolf (decvax!yale-comix!mwolf)