Assisted Suicide Essay Research Paper Should assisted

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Assisted Suicide Essay, Research Paper Should assisted suicide become totally legal in the U.S.? Well, that is the question that Mr. Stephen Carter seems to brutally review in his article ?Rush to a Lethal Judgement,? where it appears that he takes a stance against assisted suicide. He makes a very week argument though, and I feel he would fail at convincing most anyone. His thoughts are well organized, but he fails to really take a side on the debate until the very end and at that point it is no longer very useful. Carter starts the article with many background facts and instances on euthanasia. He discusses the application of the second and the fourteenth amendments to the constitution as the cornerstone of many assisted suicide supporters? arguments. He goes on to analyze

two separate court cases on euthanasia and question the logic behind them. He finishes up by contemplating if class and social status do and should take precedence in deciding whether or not an individual can help another commit suicide and the problems that it presents to the nation as a whole. After reading this article I decided that it was set up somewhat like a mystery novel where all the facts are given first and then you find out who the killer is at the end. In a similar way, Carter gives a great deal of information on the topic, including court cases and many personal accounts, but fails to make his stance clear until the last few paragraphs. There are very differing reasons for why he might have done this. The first being that he might just be a poor writer, which is

really not likely, seeing that he is a professor of law at Yale. The second, and more plausible, reason is that he did this with a very specific purpose in mind. With his presenting both sides? arguments early in the essay he appears to have a more balanced perspective and open mind when he gives his own opinion, which is against making a constitutional amendment protecting assisted suicide. And because he constantly refers to individual morality, if he didn?t use this organization it might appear that he was only ranting and raving because he was a fundamentalist Christian that really had no logical perspective on the situation at all. At least, this is one possible scenario for his vague organization. As I said, Carter chooses to use several court cases and quotes as evidence

for his opinion, but the problem in his strategy is that the evidence he uses does not really support, nor argue against his point of view. He discusses two court cases in which assisted suicide was ruled to be legal. The courts ruled the same, but used different logic for ruling in the manner they did. He goes on to argue for one case?s reasoning over the other?s, but does not even mention whether or not he agrees with their final decisions as a whole. These reports do add to the readers overall knowledge of the topic he is discussing, but serves no purpose in trying to persuade the reader one way or another. In fact, in reading this article I first assumed that he was arguing against his final stance, but his opinion became more clear much later. The personal cases used were

also very futile, in my opinion. He discussed a psychiatrist who was treating a patient that wanted to commit suicide and reminded Carter that, ?she had the right to kill herself if she wanted.? He never argues this point that he makes. He only states it and then moves on to another topic. He later writes about Jack Kevorkian and his constant battles with the Michigan judicial system. Once again, he does not argue for or against this situation, he only states it for the record and then moves onto another topic. In this way, he fails to truly support his position. His poor organization quickly points out that he really has no clear thesis statement. The point he is trying to get across is eventually revealed, but a true thesis statement is not evident throughout the article. As I