More on the Right to Die

Mother Jones, in the January/February 2016 issue, ran a story, My Right to Die: Assisted Suicide, My Family, and Me by Kevin Drum. This story starts with a personalized account of an individual who was terminally ill but didn't have the option of physician-aided dying.  The story provides an in-depth look at the laws of physician-aided dying and the arguments, both for and against.  The article then becomes even more personal when the author reveals his diagnosis of cancer for which there is no cure.  He reviews his options for the future and remarks that the California law on physician-aided dying now provides an option he didn't have until the law was signed.

The author speculates: is "assisted suicide is the next big civil rights battle? The fact that four states have approved assisted suicide in just the past seven years suggests momentum may finally be reaching critical mass. What's more, if Gallup's polling is to be believed, the word "suicide" has finally lost its shock value. Still, legislation continues to fail more often than it passes, even in blue states like Massachusetts and Connecticut. Right now, it's just too early to tell." The article can serve as a good foundation for a classroom discussion.