Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law

In his June 9 Column Right, Cal Thomas makes the ridiculous assertion that Oregon’s assisted suicide law will obviously lead to “obligatory killing, of course.” Huh? Precisely how does enabling individuals to make their own decisions about when their own lives will end inevitably lead to the complete erosion of that same right?

Individual rights should be compromised only at the point where the exercise of those rights affects the rights of others; to the extent that a private decision affects only the rights of the individual making the decision, government should stay out. So where exactly does the government get off determining that people cannot end their lives at a time they choose, with--if they wish--the help of a consenting physician?

Thomas writes that “the federal government’s first obligation is to protect life.” He doesn’t, however, state what life should be protected from. Clearly, Thomas cannot fathom the idea that life should be protected not only from those who would end it against an individual’s will, but also against those who would prolong it against an individual’s will.

MICHAEL CHASKES

Los Angeles

* No one has the right to take a person’s life, even if it is that person. My husband died from AIDS four years ago and never once was suicide considered. He was in pain, he suffered. But he experienced every part of his life--all of it, including the natural process of dying.

My brother, on the other hand, did not. He ended his emotional suffering by hanging himself. I do not claim to know absolutely what happens after death, but I do believe in the universal law of cause and effect. Each one suffered and each one chose how he would die; those sufferings and choices will be judged in accordance with that law, not the law of the Supreme Court.

Thomas was so right when he wrote, “It isn’t death that needs assistance. It’s life.” We cannot continue to kill those people and things that are either inconvenient to us or do not serve our desires. Who knows which of us might be next?

PENELOPE HELENICK ADDY

Sherman Oaks