In June 1997, in its rulings on Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the Constitution does not guarantee a “right to die” (although the Court’s ruling does not prevent states from passing laws to establish or bar this right). In Vacco v. Quill, the Court overturned a 1996 ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals declaring New York State’s ban on assisted suicide unconstitutional. In the Second Circuit Court’s decision, Judge Roger Miner had determined that the ban violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which declares that a state cannot “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Plaintiffs had charged that, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, New York State treated two similar classes of people...