Opinion ID: 1442532
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Right to State-Assisted Suicide?

Text: I know of no judicially created or other legal right to commit suicide or to have court-ordered assistance in carrying out one's self-destruction. Although suicide is not a crime in Nevada or in any other state, there is certainly a strong enough public policy against suicide to preclude the courts from assisting in its enactment. Further, it is most certainly a crime to conspire to commit suicide or to aid and abet a suicide. Our law of crimes is legislative, and no statutory crime should be abolished or absolved without legislative enactment or repeal. The issues presented here, though unique in many respects, are only part of a whole array of social, ethical, theological and legal problems that have come to us through the advancements of medical science. Until very recently in our history this kind of predicament was, necessarily, not a matter that was subject to being dealt with by our law. We have here a man whose consciousness was entombed in a body immobile. Unlike most of the readers of this opinion, Mr. Bergstedt did not have the power to end his life by himself, no matter how tortured his life became. If I am not mistaken, the technical ability to keep a person with these kinds of injuries alive by means of mechanical respiration has not been available for much more than fifty years. When we are faced with protecting the interests and dignity of a person like Mr. Bergstedt, we are dealing with a problem completely unknown and probably unthinkable to the law throughout most of its history. Still, there is a history of suicide in the law and even a history of state-sanctioned suicide. This might be useful to us in thinking through the problem at hand. Although ancient Greece and Rome opposed suicide, and sanctions were imposed on the properties of those who committed suicide, laws were enacted in both Greece and Rome which excused suicide under certain circumstances. These societies provided for access to the courts for the purpose of hearing the applications of persons who were desirous of quitting life; and the courts could grant or refuse permission in each case as they saw fit. In the margin I have included a relatively modern commentary on this subject. [11] I bring this up only to show that in times past societies did grant state approval for certain kinds of self-destruction under certain kinds of circumstances and to show that the problem facing us today is not an entirely new one and perhaps only a new twist on a very old problem. It seems reasonable to assume that a Roman or Grecian court would find Mr. Bergstedt's plea to end his life to be one justified under their laws. As I have maintained throughout, however, this is a matter for our democratically-elected representatives in the legislature. They are the ones who must answer these questions and particularly the pressing and specific question: What are we going to do about a totally paralyzed person who is undergoing the unbearable suffering that continued consciousness brings, and who wants desperately to bring his life to an end but does not have the physical capability of doing it?