The Rise and Fall of the “Right” to Assisted Suicide (IN: The Case Against Assisted Suicide: for the Right to End-of-life Care, ed. by K Foley & H Hendin)

The author examines a series of major U.S. legal cases that 1) made biomedical issues into questions of federal policy; 2) gave strength to early arguments for the right to assisted suicide; 3) led to the 1996 finding by 2 U.S. circuit courts that there was a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide under certain circumstances; & 4) eventually resulted in the rejection of this right by the U.S. Supreme Court. The author goes on to consider the future of this issue in the Supreme Court & the political arena.