If medical ethicist Eike-Henner Kluge is correct (Judge To Decide Fate Of Husband In Wife's Suicide - Feb. 24) that suicide victim Yanisa Fonteece had a legal right to end her life, then others - including her husband - have a duty not to prevent her from exercising that right.
That would mean that people who have attempted suicide and are brought to hospital must not be treated but allowed to die. The fact that they are treated and that no health-care professional has been charged or sued for doing so clearly demonstrates that there is no such right. Indeed, in most cases, they would be much more likely to be charged or sued for not doing so.
Changing the law to allow physician-assisted suicide would create such a right. This is a bad idea. For instance, even though, initially, that right would only exist in limited circumstances, it sets a precedent that inevitably will be expanded, as we see in the Netherlands, to include people such as Ms. Fonteece. And it sends a message that suicide is an appropriate response to suffering.
McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law