Do we have a “Right to Die?” Is the “Right to Die” implied in the Constitution? 

INTRO:

Karen Ann Quinlan was a 21 year old woman who fell into a coma and then a persistent vegetative state in 1975 after consuming alcohol and Valium at a party. She had been on a crash-diet to fit into a dress. Her parents fought for the right to remove her from a ventilator, and the State of New Jersey granted their request in 1976 under the Right to Privacy clause of the Constitution. However, they kept her feeding tube in, and she remained in the vegetative state until her death from pneumonia 9 years later, in 1985. She weighed 65 pounds at her death. Karen’s tragic case shows how important the “right to die” is.

What does “Right to Die” mean?

• The right to die with assistance means a patient’s right to authorize a physician to commit an act that would directly result in the patient’s death, without the doctor being held civilly or criminally liable.

Why is the “Right to Die” important? 

• It allows for those with no hope of recovery to avoid needless prolonged suffering and absolves their families of the pain and financial burden associated with keeping them alive. Modern medicine has advanced to the point where we can keep people technically “alive” with the assistance of machines far beyond what the writers of the Constitution could ever imagine. Thus, while the Constitution does not specifically grant people the “right to die,” it also does not specifically deny them the same right. 

What is currently legal in the United States?

• The issue of physician assisted suicide has been arbitrated many times in the Supreme Court, which seems to largely have thrown the question to the states to decide for themselves. As of 2020, 9 states and DC all have adopted “death with dignity” acts, which allow for physician assisted suicide in some circumstances. 

There are 8 main points that support my assertion that the Constitution does imply that we have the “Right to Die.”

Why we believe the Constitution grants us the “Right to Die”

POINTS:

• The first point is the Death with Dignity Act

Since 2016, California has had in place the California Death with Dignity Act, allowing certain terminally ill patients to legally request medication that would end the patient's life in a safe, humane, and dignified manner. The legal basis underpinning this Act is found in the fact that “legislation is considered unconstitutional and invalid only if the ‘unconstitutionality is clearly, positively, and certainly shown.’” Since the Constitution never clearly, positively, or certainly shows the unconstitutionality of the “right to die,” as seen in the fact that multiple states have adopted legislation that allows it and the Supreme Court continues to debate it, it cannot be considered unconstitutional. 

• Right to Privacy

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment grants a substantive right to privacy, which extends to the protections around one’s choice to die. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court established the concept of a constitutional guarantee of privacy which “emanated” from the Bill of Rights, even if it was not specifically identified in it. While this case was in relation to one’s ability to procure contraceptives, the establishment of a constitutional right to privacy extends to one’s right to die as well. Furthermore, the constitutionality of privacy was upheld in the cases of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, wherein the court ruled that the State could not prohibit abortions or subject women seeking them to undue burdens because abortions are deeply private matters, and involving the government in such an issue would violate the Constitution’s implicit right to privacy. In addition, Roe v. Wade (1973) upheld a woman’s right to receive an abortion and found that inherent in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is a fundamental “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s choice whether to have an abortion. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state action the right to privacy, and a person’s choice to terminate their life falls within that right to privacy.

• Equal protection clause

The fundamental rights, rights recognized by the Supreme Court as being fair and legal, can be extended to the “penumbral” rights, rights or powers implied by the Constitution, under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Equal Protection Clause commands that no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws'' and states must treat cases alike but may treat unlike cases accordingly. In the case of Washington v. Glucksberg, the Constitution was said to encompass a due process liberty interest in controlling the time and manner of one's death-that there is, in short, a constitutionally recognized 'right to die’. Since there is a “constitutionally recognized ‘right to die’ found in the Washington v. Glucksberg ruling, any other case dealing with whether or not there is a constitutionally recognized right to die must, under the Equal Protection Clause, find the same ruling.

• Right to control one’s own body

The right to refuse unwanted medical treatment is a “penumbral” right in that there is a legal right to control one’s own body. As stated by the Supreme Court, "No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others…” Physician-assisted suicide is part of health care, and thus, can be considered a legitimate medical treatment. In Cruzan v. Missouri Dept. of Health, the Court held that individuals enjoyed the right to refuse medical treatment under the Due Process Clause. The common law principles states that “even the touching of one person by another without consent and without legal justification was a battery” and “thus, at common law, the basic right to control one's own body encompassed an explicit right to refuse unwanted medical treatment, as expressed in the doctrine of informed consent.”

• The right to die is deeply Rooted in our Nation’s History

In Vacco v. Quill, the Court rejected the notion that the logic of right to privacy could be applied to a Constitutional right to physician assisted suicide by explaining that the right to privacy and the 14th amendment only protects liberties that are “deeply rooted our nation’s history” which, in their assessment, did not include the right to die. Yet, this reasoning is flawed, as suicide was decriminalized throughout the 1970-90’s by 48 states, and the right to die has been a legal debate for decades. In the United States, facilitated death is clearly a deeply rooted tradition, as seen in the continued implementation of capital punishment, i.e. the death penalty. If a corrections officer is free from legal repercussions when administering lethal injections to inmates to fulfill a court order, then why shouldn’t a doctor be granted the same rights when helping terminate the life of a terminally ill patient at their request?

• Concept of Ordered Liberty

In the case of Vacco v. Quill, Vacco argued that the right for a competent terminally ill person to avoid excruciating pain and embrace a timely and dignified death, bears the sanction of history and is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. The exercise of this right is as central to personal autonomy and bodily integrity as rights safeguarded by this Court’s decisions relating to marriage and procreation. 

• 8th Amendment Protection against Cruel and Unusual Punishment

The Eighth Amendment states that “Excessive bail shall not be required[...] nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Forcing a terminally ill patient or a patient who is stuck in a vegetative state to live out the remainder of their excruciatingly painful life falls under the category of “cruel and unusual punishment,” which is unconstitutional. While it is difficult to assess the level of pain a person in a vegetative state feels, a recent study found that 96% of doctors believe that patients in a minimally conscious state are able to feel pain. Thus, using extraordinary measures to keep them legally “alive” amounts to little more than state-sponsored administration of cruel suffering.  

• My final point, that the Constitution’s Fundamental Rights are Permissive, not Mandatory

Within the Constitution, there are rights that are granted to all people, among these being the right to life, the right to bear arms, the right to assemble, and so on. While the Second Amendment grants you the right to own a weapon, it does not make exercising this right mandatory, i.e. you do not HAVE to bear arms. Under the same logic, while you have the right to life, you do not have to exercise this right. These rights are permissive—not mandatory—and enforcing these rights as if they were mandatory erodes the very spirit and meaning behind which they were granted.  

DECISION:

Yes, based on the Equal Protection Clause and Right to Privacy clause of the 14th Amendment, the concept of ordered liberty, the 8th Amendment, and legal interpretations of extensions of fundamental rights, the Constitution does grant us the “right to die.” Thus, the decision to make physician assisted suicide illegal in the United States is unconstitutional.