Arguing Euthanasia The Controversy Over Mercy Killing, Assisted Suicide, And The "Right To Die"

The proliferation of life-prolonging technology in recent years has made the controversy over the "right to die" and physician-assisted suicide one of the most explosive medical and ethical issues of our day. Dr. Jack Kevorkian's "suicide machine" has commanded front-page coverage for several years, while in 1994 Oregon passed a measure allowing the terminally ill to obtain lethal prescriptions for suicide, and other states have placed similar proposals on their ballots.

Jonathan D. Moreno, Ph.D., is the Director of the Division of Humanities in Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and of Medicine at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn and is the author of several books on medical ethics. He lives in New York City and Washington, D.C.