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35 Duq. L. Rev. 395 (1996-1997)
Physician-Assisted Suicide, Medical Ethics and the Future of the Medical Profession

handle is hein.journals/duqu35 and id is 375 raw text is: Physician-Assisted Suicide, Medical Ethics and the Future of the Medical Profession Leon R. Kass* Nelson Lund** I. INTRODUCTION The United States Supreme Court will soon decide whether to promulgate a new constitutional doctrine effectively ending the ability of state governments to interfere with physician-assisted suicides. If the Court takes this step, it will instantly legitimate the controversial campaign of Jack Kevorkian and ensure that countless new Kevorkians will arise. But this obvious result may be among the least important effects of such a ruling. By ousting our elected governments from the field, the Supreme Court would necessarily impose on itself (and on the lower courts that operate under its supervision) an awesome new set of regulatory tasks. The courts would henceforth become responsible for resolving some of the most difficult dilemmas facing the medical profession and some of the most delicate aspects of the relation- ship between physicians and their patients. There are good rea- sons to fear that the result would be a disaster. Two state laws that make it a crime for physicians to assist their patients in committing suicide are now under review by the Supreme Court. We believe the statutes should be upheld. They embody a professional consensus-one that has existed for thousands of years-according to which physicians should never assist any person in committing suicide. This judgment remains entirely defensible as a matter of medical ethics and as a matter of public policy. Modern developments in medical technology have created difficult new dilemmas about the care of patients at the end of life, but these developments have emphatically not rendered the traditional bright-line rule outmoded. If anything, * Addle Clark Harding Professor in the College and the Committee on Social Thought, The University of Chicago; M.D., University of Chicago 1962; Ph.D., Harvard University 1967. ** Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law; Ph.D., Harvard Uni- versity 1981; J.D., University of Chicago 1985.

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