Andrew Lewis

About the author: Andrew Lewis hosts his own radio show and sits on the board of contributors of the Intellectual Activist, a monthly review of current events and books.

The U.S. Constitution protects an individual's right to decide how to live and how to die. Consequently, those who seek to make physician-assisted suicide legal or illegal ignore the implicit constitutionality of this right. Republicans who oppose physicianassisted suicide want the federal government to violate the Constitution by making physician-assisted suicide illegal. Even Democratic supporters of physician-assisted suicide deny its implicit constitutionality by encouraging the government to regulate its practice.

In 1994, 51% of Oregon's voters supported the "Death with Dignity Act," and 60% reaffirmed it in 1997. The law recognized the right of terminally ill patients to end their suffering legally and painlessly...