Death with Dignity Education Center

About the author: The Death with Dignity Education Center is an organization whose mission is to promote a comprehensive, humane, responsive system of care for terminally ill patients. The well-known death with dignity advocate Timothy Quill is a member of the board of directors for the center.

Those opposed to physician-assisted suicide regularly cite certain misguided ethical arguments. Critics argue that legalized physician- assisted suicide would violate the Hippocratic Oath, erode the trust between doctors and patients, violate the sanctity of life, and start society down the "slippery slope" toward involuntary death. However, these concerns are based on outdated traditions and fail to take into account the impact of modern medicine and its ability to indefinitely defer death. The arguments also fail to acknowledge that laws and regulations that...