Abstract
Physician-assisted suicide is an extremely complex and controversial legal issue, deeply rooted in morality, legality, and ethics. Countries around the world are split as to how to approach this concept, with some permitting physician-assisted suicide under particular circumstances, and others strictly prohibiting it. [1] This division is evidence of the subject’s complex underpinnings. According to the United States Declaration of Independence, all Americans are deserving of certain unalienable rights, “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”[2] But what about the right to die?
There are a number of reasons as to why physician assisted suicide is complicated, including the implications placed on physicians themselves. According to the American Medical Association’s (“AMA”) Code of Medical Ethics, physicians must uphold certain expectations, including: “to provide care in emergencies, honor patients’ informed decisions to refuse life-sustaining treatment, and respect basic civil liberties and not discriminate against individuals in deciding whether to enter into a professional relationship with a new patient.”[3] Although the concept of assisting in a premature death is complicated, the AMA is clear that conscious, capable patients hold the right to withdraw from or decline medical intervention to sustain life, even where such a decision will expectedly result in the patient’s death.[4] Alternatively, where a patient has become incapacitated, another individual with the official capacity to make decisions regarding treatment holds the authority to decline medical intervention.[5] AMA states that “[w]hen an intervention no longer helps to achieve the patient’s goals for care or desired quality of life, it is ethically appropriate for physicians to withdraw it.”[6]
The AMA deems both physician assisted suicide and euthanasia “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s people as a healer.”[7],[8] It offers alternatives to these solutions, noting physicians’ duties during end of life care, including that physicians: “(a) Should not abandon a patient once it is determined that cure is impossible. (b) Must respect patient autonomy. (c) Must provide good communication and emotional support. (d) Must provide appropriate comfort care and adequate pain control.”[9] Although the AMA acknowledges that patients’ suffering from “terminal, painful, [or] debilitating illness” may lead them to believe death is preferable to life,[10] it is not at the will of the physician to decide at what point a life may cease.
[1] Ezekiel J. Emanuel et al., Attitudes and Practices of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide in the United States, Canada, and Europe, 316 J. Am. Med. Ass’n 79, 80 (2016).
[2] U.S. Const. pmbl.
[3] Opinion 1.1.7: Physician Exercise of Conscience, Am. Med. Ass’n, https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/physician-exercise-conscience (last visited Oct. 8, 2025). (on file with DePaul Journal of Health Care Law).
[4] Opinion 5.3: Withholding or Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatmet, Am. Med. Ass’n, https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/withholding-or-withdrawing-life-sustaining-treatment (last visited Oct. 8, 2025). (on file with DePaul Journal of Health Care Law).
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Opinion 5.7: Physician-Assisted Suicide, Am. Med. Ass’n, https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/physician-assisted-suicide (last visited Oct. 8, 2025). (on file with DePaul Journal of Health Care Law).
[8] Opinion 5.8: Euthanasia, Am. Med. Ass’n, https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/euthanasia (last visited Oct. 8, 2025). (on file with DePaul Journal of Health Care Law).
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
Recommended Citation
Janna George,
Death Wish: A Comprehensive Analysis of Physician Assisted Suicide,
27
DePaul J. Health Care L.
(2026)
Available at:
https://via.library.depaul.edu/jhcl/vol27/iss1/1