Here is a link to an excellent essay by Richard Stith entitled “Making Death Easier Makes Life Harder.” Here is his concluding paragraph:
“Each withdrawal of protection against suicide endangers not only the lives but also the human dignity and support relationships of persons with burdensome infirmities. By contrast, when our law and culture treat suicide as a tragic rather than a benign choice and refuse to facilitate it, those most in need are more likely to receive sympathetic help rather than guilt-inducing blame and resentment. Opponents of the legalization of assisted suicide thus have not only strong pro-life arguments but also telling quality-of-life arguments that they need to bring up whenever any right to suicide is being debated.”
Richard Myers
Richard S. Myers, the Vice-President of UFL, is Professor of Law at Ave Maria School of Law, where he teaches Antitrust, Civil Procedure, Conflict of Laws, Constitutional Law, and Religious Freedom. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Kenyon College and earned his law degree at Notre Dame, where he won the law school's highest academic prize. He began his legal career by clerking for Judge John F. Kilkenny of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Myers also worked for Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in Washington, D.C. He taught at Case Western Reserve University School of Law and the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law before joining the Ave Maria faculty. He is a co-editor of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition: Contemporary Perspectives (Catholic University of American Press, 2004) and a co-editor of Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy (Scarecrow Press, 2007). He has also published extensively on constitutional law in law reviews and also testified before Congressional and state legislative hearings on life issues.
Married to Mollie Murphy, who is also on the faculty at Ave Maria School of Law, they are the proud parents of six children - Michael, Patrick, Clare, Kathleen, Matthew, and Andrew. http://www.avemarialaw.edu/index.cfm?event=faculty.bio&pid=11705E7D4E0111010366
