The author of this article examines 4 types of arguments that can be offered to support the conclusion that it can never be right for a physician to take part in assisted suicide, & finds that none succeeds. Each, he argues, attempts to show why the duty to conserve life must be unconditional for physicians, yet he finds that the ways in which contemporary medicine has evolved show that such a duty is now no more fundamental to the profession than a duty to relieve suffering, which may in some cases override it. (29 REFS)