Humanism and Right-to-Die

Shelly Cohen has recently published her article De-moralizing Death: A Humanistic Approach to the Sanctity of Life, 14 Elder L.J. 91-125 (2006).

Here is her conclusion:

Presently, right-to-die adjudication is stuck. While courts have framed the debate in seemingly neutral legal terms, their reasoning relies heavily on a theologically based derivation of the sanctity of life principle. At the most basic level, religiously informed decision making is problematic because it violates the ethos of the Establishment Clause. In addition, such decision making departs from the acceptable modes of argumentation necessary to uphold the cultural pluralism essential to a legitimate democratic regime.

Beyond these general problems, theologically based reasoning has led to an intolerable impasse within the PAS debate. Meaningful dialogue cannot continue until the actual unit of analysis–the derivation of the sanctity of life–is acknowledged. Finally, if PAS is ever to be recognized as a right, this acknowledgment must be followed by the adoption of a humanistic derivation of sanctity. Such a change would not only alleviate the tension caused by the present entanglement of government and religion, but would also allow for a candid and fair consideration of physician-assisted suicide as a recognizable right.