ABSTRACT
IN DISCUSSING the United States Supreme Court's physician-assisted suicide decisions, many commentators will attack the Court for its affirmation of the distinction between withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment and assisted suicide. Others will disagree with the Court's understanding of the United States Constitution. In preserving the distinction between treatment withdrawal and assisted suicide, the Supreme Court justified the distinction by appealing to considerations of causation and intent. According to the Court, when life-sustaining treatment is withdrawn, the patient dies from an underlying disease. In contrast, with assisted suicide, the patient dies because of a physician's active intervention in supplying a lethal medication. In terms of the Supreme Court's other main justification for the withdrawal-suicide distinction the physician's intent terminal sedation also cannot be distinguished from euthanasia. The Court's decision to reject assisted suicide despite its acceptance of terminal sedation can be explained by comparing the typical case of terminal sedation with the typical case of suicide.
