Abortion and suicide

The US House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would place severe restrictions on physician-assisted suicide. If the bill is ratified in the Senate and approved by the president, it would become national law, and thereby overrule any existing state laws on assisted suicide. The popular initiative in Oregon (allowing assisted suicide), for example, would be struck down by the federal courts (assuming the US Supreme Court finds this act constitutional).

If the US Supreme Court sanctions this federal ban on physician-assisted suicide, it would be a hypocritical act: Killing unborn babies with absolutely no choice in the matter (i.e., abortion, in Roe vs. Wade) is perfectly permissible, while killing yourself with the help of a trained physician is totally unacceptable.

If anything, the case for assisted suicide is ostensibly much stronger than the case for abortion. Merely compare a woman’s right to choose abortion to a person’s right to choose suicide.

In the case of abortion, the life and rights of the unborn remain firmly in question. With assisted suicide, however, only one life–and one right–is in question.

It therefore stands to reason that if you allow abortion, physician-assisted suicide should automatically follow. If a woman has a right to her own body (to kill her baby), a man surely has a right to permanently call it quits.

Of course, the US Supreme Court has not consistently recognized a woman’s right to her own body. If it did, it would automatically strike down all laws prohibiting prostitution.

The US Supreme Court has also failed to consistently recognize a man’s right to his own body. If it did, it would automatically allow the sale of kidneys and other vital organs for necessary transplant operations.

Yet, if the US Supreme Court upheld a person’s absolute right to the use and disposal of his own body, the consequences might be disturbing indeed. An extremely indigent person, for example, might then be able to legally allow a sadistic capitalist to murder him for a fee (the proceeds going to his family).

In fact, if all political regimes recognized a man’s inalienable right to himself, a hot new suicide-for-profit growth industry could very well flourish in the impoverished third world. It could be bigger than life insurance and viaticals combined, since payment to next of kin would be direct and immediate.

Such a ghastly industry would indeed be repugnant–but people often do repulsive things with their lives. And it is their own lives, is it not? Or do they belong to you, me and the government?