Then, interestingly, it points to the zeal for martyrdom among the early Christians as clear evidence of a Church-sanctioned, natural human desire to hasten death. This dark dogma was dispelled by the enlightenment, which tore at the superstitious underpinnings of the Church's irrational opposition to suicide. By the nineteenth century, courts and legislators had stopped enforcing anti-suicide statutes. Liberal jurists, not generally known for their commitment to historical analysis, have evidently found that it can be quite useful in this age of deconstruction. I doubt whether this is what Justice Scalia had in mind when he lamented Constitutional analysis divorced from history and tradition.
Death results in both cases.
Death is the intent in both cases. Such unrespectable analyses give credence to the accusation that federal judges have taken on the role of amateur philosophers. Crucial, life and death distinctions agonized over by theologians, philosophers and medical ethicists are casually waved away by these judicial idealogues. The state argued that the disabled and poor will be vulnerable to those who see their lives as useless. The state argued further that the medical profession will be compromised when physicians become killers.