06/05/2004: "Assisted suicide and the religious straw man"

Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, attorney Thomas Bowden of the Ayn Rand Institute demonstrates why people should be careful when choosing a lawyer:

I hope the U.S. Supreme Court will soon revisit its erroneous 1997 decision in Washington v. Glucksberg, which held that individuals have no constitutionally protected right of suicide, and hence no right to obtain assistance in that act. There is no rational, secular basis on which the government can prevent anyone from choosing to end his own life. Rather, it is religious mysticism that energizes Ashcroft and the Bush administration into intimidating doctors.

Conservative outrage at the Oregon law stems from the belief that human life is a gift from the Lord, who puts us here on Earth to carry out His will. When one "plays God" by causing his own death, or assisting in the death of another, he insults his Maker and invites eternal damnation, not to mention divine retribution against the society that permits such sin.

When religious conservatives use secular laws to enforce their beliefs, they threaten the principles on which America was founded: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The constitutional basis for assisted suicide is presumably found in the right to privacy, which, however, is not in the Constitution. (I also love the idea that one is pursuing life and happiness when one commits suicide, but I doubt that the writer saw the irony.) No matter. Bowden insists that it's nothing more than hidebound fundamentalism that causes the state to not help people kill themselves. He can think of no "rational, secular basis" for such a policy. How about these:

1) The value of human life, determined, in part by the web of relationships possessed by virtually every individual, so that doing harm to oneself inevitably harms those around one (even if they don't see that harm).

2) The value that citizens have to the community of which they are a part.

3) The possibility of abuse, amply demonstrated by the way assisted suicide has played out in the Netherlands.

I could go on, but that's enough for now. Let's just say that when you hear "arguments" like this from a lawyer, you've gotten exactly what you paid for.