Constitutional Privacy, the Right to die, and the Meaning of Life (IN: Sex, Drugs, Death, and the Law, by D A J Richards)

Examines the moral basis for the decriminalization of certain decisions to die. The chapter is organized as follows: first, an application of the autonomy-based interpretation of treating persons as equals to the explication of the moral principles that define the structure of the right to life; second, a critical examination of the traditional moral & paternalistic arguments for the criminalization of all decisions to die; third, a statement of the case for the right to die, its limits, & its proper effectuation as a form of the constitutional right to privacy; & fourth, a discussion of possible limits on the degree to which the full scope of the right to die may be enforced by constitutional privacy.