Comment & Debate
Andrew Batavia, J.D. “Disability and Physician-Assisted Dying”. Physician-Assisted Dying: The Case for Palliative Care & Patient Choice. 2004 – “We do not believe that the right to assisted suicide is premised on a diminished quality of life for people with disabilities. It is based on respect for the autonomy of terminally ill individuals during their final days… It does not deny people with disabilities suicide prevention services, protection against murder, or protection from other abuses.”
In Compassion in Dying v. Washington (1996), the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision delivered by Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt, stated – “Nor is it likely that the disabled will be pressured into committing physician-assisted suicide. Organizations representing the physically impaired are sufficiently active politically and sufficiently vigilant that they would soon put a halt to any effort to employ assisted suicide in a manner that affected their clients unfairly.”[1]