Retired professor and psychoanalyst Ernest Van den Haag, by defending the right to commit suicide, made an appeal to J.S. Mill’s principle. Van den Haag said that people should have the right to choose as they please, as long as no one else is hurt (Hallock 13). According to the constitution, people have the right to decide death, not the government (Dority 8). Doctors will only help those who choose to die, when there is no other hope or cure (Birenbaum 29). In many cases, death is not the worst outcome. Sometimes the worst outcome is to live a life of absolute agony (Hallock 10). If you have a doctor willing to end someone’s life and a patient willing to end his own life, the act of physician-assisted suicide should be in progress (13).

Word Count: 135