Who has the right to end a life?

March 31 will mark the second anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death, which plunged the nation into a heated debate over who has the right to end a life. In June, Dr. Jack Kevorkian is scheduled to be released from prison. California and Vermont are considering legislation that would legalize physician-assisted suicide; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Oregon's law constitutional last year.
Two states are considering bills modeled after Oregon’s law. On Feb. 15, 2007, legislators introduced the California Compassionate Choices Act for consideration. The Vermont Legislature is considering a bill called Patient Choice and Control at End of Life.

On Feb. 14, 2007, the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine issued a position statement on "Physician-Assisted Death."

In December 2006, the Roman Catholic Church refused to give a religious funeral to a Rome man with muscular dystrophy who had begged the Italian government to allow him to end his life legally. Piergiorgio Welby died after his doctor disconnected him from his respirator. The doctor was arrested, and the Vatican refused to give Welby a religious funeral because he had advocated euthanasia.

Euthanasia raises the most profound questions about who has the right to die, who has the right to help them -- and who has the right to choose who lives and dies. Not a day goes by when a country, state, doctor, hospice worker, theologian, ethicist or family member doesn’t wrestle with whether to allow passive or active euthanasia and whether to challenge doctors or patients who take the law into their own hands.