Supreme Court Right to Uphold Assisted Suicide Law

I'm on quite a few email lists. Quite a few of those, I merely note the headlines and hit "delete." Those I receive from the Ayn Rand Institute, on the other hand, I always read completely.

Now, don't mistake me, occasionally I laugh or sputter indignantly at some of the wordings or ideological dogmatisms proferred. What is different with the ARI newsletters though, is simply that I must always think about them before deciding to save it or trash it. I rarely (if ever) see their take and say to myself "there they go again! {shakin'head}." Even though I may often disagree on some point or another, I still appreciate their approach because of the way it makes me confront my own ideas on the issues at hand.

I'll save any further (or real) commentary for another post (maybe.) For now, it is enough to say that I could not agree more fully with this letter to an editor vis-a-vie the recent SCOTUS ruling on Oregon's assisted suicide laws.

Dear Editor: In upholding Oregon's assisted suicide law, the Supreme Court reached the right result for the wrong reasons. The law should have been upheld on the grounds of an individual's right to his own life. The right to life includes and implies the right to commit suicide. To hold otherwise is to deny the right to life at its root. If we have a duty to go on living, despite our better judgment, then our life does not belong to us, and we exist by permission, not by right. Individuals have a moral right to seek assistance in committing suicide. And if a doctor is willing to assist, based on an objective assessment of his patient's mental and physical state, the law should not stand in his way. There is no rational basis upon which the government can properly prevent an individual from choosing to end his life. The choice is his because the life is his. Religious conservatives, supported by the Bush administration, want to ban assisted suicide because it defies God's will. Such conservatives crave to inject religion into the bloodstream of American law, thereby assisting in our own national suicide. People of reason must refuse their consent to the religious conservative agenda. Thomas A. Bowden Ayn Rand Institute Irvine, CA 2121 Alton Parkway #250 949-222-6550 ext 226

Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

By the way, I requested, and received, permission to reprint this email here.

Thanks Larry.