Begging to die: the curiously circumscribed suicide right recognized by Canada's Supreme Court.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, people do not have a fundamental right to kill themselves. The Supreme Court of Canada used to agree, but in February it changed its mind.

Both courts still agree, however, that the government has the authority to determine when and how you may take your life. The curiously circumscribed right recognized by the Canadian Supreme Court reflects a willingness to surrender our most basic liberty--to be or not to be--in exchange for an official stamp of approval that free people should not need.

The Canadian Supreme Court concluded that criminal penalties for assisting suicide "unjustifiably infringe" on "the right to life, liberty and security of the person," but only "to the extent that they prohibit physician-assisted death for a competent adult person who (i) clearly consents to the termination of life and (2) has a grievous and irremediable medical condition ... that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual." Oregon, Washington, and Vermont, which have statutes that allow physicians to help patients kill themselves, likewise strictly define the circumstances in which suicide is acceptable.

It is not hard to see why judges, voters, and legislators would be sympathetic to people in the situation described by the Canadian Supreme Court. If I had a grievous and irremediable medical condition that caused intolerable suffering, they think,

I would like to have the option of dying painlessly at a time of my own choosing, and I might need other people's help to do that.

One of the plaintiffs in the Canadian case provided compelling testimony to that effect. "I five in apprehension that my death will be slow, difficult, unpleasant, painful, undignified, and inconsistent with the values and principles I have tried to live by," said Gloria Taylor, who died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's disease) in 2012. "What I fear is a death that negates, as opposed to concludes, my life. I do not want to die slowly, piece by piece. I do not want to waste away unconscious in a hospital bed. I do not want to die wracked with pain."

It truly is outrageous that the state would try to prevent someone in Taylor's...