Physician Assisted Suicide as Manslaughter
This question concerns the constituti
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This question concerns the constitutionality of a statute which labels physician-assisted suicide as manslaughter. The facts of this question involve a man who has contracted HIV and is experiencing respiratory problems. The man asked the defendant doctor to prescribe enough painkillers to enable him to end his life if and when he so chose. The doctor refused, but continued to provide the man with a generous supply of painkillers. Months later, the man attempted to take his own life by overdosing on the prescribed painkillers. The overdose was only enough to sedate, confuse, and disorient him but while in this state he fell and struck his head, a blow which proved fatal. The doctor has been indicted under the statute prohibiting assisted suicide. The questions are whether the doctor can be found criminally liable under the statute and whether the statute itself runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution. The answer to the first question, whether the doctor in this case can be held criminally liable under the assisted suicide statute, seems fairly straightforward. The doctor in this case explicitly refused to grant the patient's wish for a prescription of painkillers sufficient to cause death. Indeed, the patient's attempt at suicide through overdose failed. He only died because he tripped and hit his head on a piece of furniture with lethal force. Such an event could have occurred if the patient had been drunk on alcohol. Holding the doctor liable for manslaughter u
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cond trimester became a gray area in the law as progressing medical technology increased the viability of fetuses born during the second trimester. In Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U.S. 416 (1983), the Court held that although the state's interest in health regulation becomes compelling at the end of the first trimester, a regulation can only be upheld if it is reasonably designed to further that state interest. The Court held that a statute requiring that all second trimester abortions be performed in hospitals was not reasonably designed to further the state's interest. The Court pointed out that the safety of second trimester abortions had increased to a considerable degree since the Roe decision and that hospitalization was no longer considered necessary by the medical community.
Whether Congress could enact a federal law prohibiting third trimester abortions would seem to be a different sort of question than whether a state could enact such a law. If the argument were to be posed in the technical jargon of Roe, it would have to follow the scientific data of fetus viability and the debates over the interests of the states in health and life (of both the fetus and the pregnant woman) versus the
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Approximate Word count = 4956
Approximate Pages = 20 (250 words per page)
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