At 13:12 04/05/99 , Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>This particular case was not that simple. The ALS patient in this
There are lots of cases when people ask others to perform acts they
can, but don't want to, perform personally, for various reasons.
I can ask somebody to massage my feet or move my furniture to
another location. Such acts are perfectly legal if I perform them
myself, and highly objectionable if performed by somebody else
without my consent. However, procedures of expressing consent in
all such cases are quite clear and commonly accepted.
The fact that identical procedures are not accepted in the case
>case was physically capable of making the willful act necessary to
>end his own life (when appropriately attached to an apparatus for
>this that Dr. K uses frequently), but in this case he did not--the
>Dr. actually took that act. "Consent" is not so clear here. If
>he was capable of expressing a desire to die, and capable of doing
>the act, why didn't he?