Accordingly, Jewish law and tradition would enthusiastically endorse the provisions of H.R. 2260 designed to encourage more extensive and more effective palliation of pain. Let me preface my second point by saying that at times I find myself suffering from intellectual schizophrenia. The responses of those two personae are not always univocal. In addressing the question of assisted suicide, however, I experience no conflict. Judaism teaches that suicide is an offense against the Deity who is the Author of life.
Common law regards suicide as an offense against the temporal sovereign.
The interest of the State in preventing suicide was first articulated in the sixteenth century British case, Hales V. Petit. In Hales the court enumerated a number of diverse objections to suicide. Suicide may be prevented and punished by the King because it constitutes interference with his rights as monarch. The common law notion of preservation of life as a monarchical prerogative has been transformed in American legal theory into an inherent function of government. In re Quinlan, which expressed the notion that the State s interest weakens and the individual s right to privacy grows as the degree of bodily invasion increases and the prognosis dims.