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Article: Killing kindness. (physician-assisted suicide)
- Article from:
- Reason
- Article date:
- May 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Reason Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Jack Kevorkian believes we can solve moral problems by medicalizing them.
THE ACT OF KILLING MAY BE DEEMED good or bad, depending on who kills whom and why. When a man shoots an intruder about to attack him, we condone the killing as self-defense. When a bandit shoots a bank teller, we condemn the killing as murder. However, when a person kills himself, we are confused about whether to regard his act as good or bad and instead classify it as mad.
Although priests no longer consider suicide a mortal sin, and lawmakers do not punish it as an offense against the state and hence a crime, psychiatrists now diagnose it as a symptom of a mental illness and hence ...