Allowing a dying person to decide to end their own life or not is a very controversial issue today. Ellen Goodman wrote an essay called, "Who Lives? Who Dies? Who Decides"" This essay talks about this exact issue and goes into detail on some examples where people have been in this situation.

Goodman explains a story about a seventy eight year old man named Earle Spring. Spring used to be a strong independent man, but now is confined to a wheel chair. He lived in a confused state of mind and goes through dialysis for five hours three times a week. Springs family wanted to take him off of dialysis, since it was the only reason why the man was alive. The court granted the family the right since spring was unable to make a decision for him. Soon after spring was taken off dialysis an outside doctor...