Rights talk
I'm generally a skeptic when people bring up the notion of natural rights. It may be a disease of modern thinking, but all too often today they mean to substitute some positive freedom from (think FDR's Four Freedoms, three of which are freedoms "from" some abstract ill) rather than a right to some basic protection.
Nevertheless, I can see the logic behind referring to a right to life. Mr. Katra's favorite thinker helped enshrine this right in the Declaration of Independence; Western Civilization as a whole has had many cultural institutions which reinforce it. Even if we qualify it by excluding some persons (I do not think that wise, but concede this for argument's sake), such a right can still make a lot of sense as a general principle.
Where I am left at a loss is the way some refer to a right to die without any obvious parallel for support like we can find for life in the Declaration, the Hippocratic Oath, and both in the liberal and natural law traditions of thought. I'm not saying I can't think of reasons; I just find it strange no one finds a good reason to explicitly refer to a first principle on this matter, particularly in this rather heated national debate. Instead, it often seems to be asserted without much in the way of historical or theoretical support. If someone has been arguing along these lines recently, I haven't seen them, so links would be good.
So, where does it come from? How should it be (or, alternatively, how is it best) supported?
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Good reading can be found in the Cruzan case. It describes the legal basis for the right to refuse treatment (not a right to die, which is a much less commonly-held view than rhetoric around the Schiavo case would indicate).
I'll quote a bit, and apologize for the citations in the way of the point, in this case:
" (a) Most state courts have based a right to refuse treatment on the common law right to informed consent, see, e.g., In re Storar, 52 N.Y.2d 363, 438 N.Y.S.2d 266, 420 N.E.2d 64, or on both that right and a constitutional privacy right, see, e.g., Superintendent of Belchertown State School v. Saikewicz, 373 Mass. 728, 370 N.E.2d 417. In addition to relying on state constitutions and the common law, state courts have also turned to state statutes for guidance, see, e.g., Conservatorship of Drabick, 200 Cal.App. 3d 185, 245 Cal.Rptr. 840. However, these sources are not available to this Court, where the question is simply whether the Federal Constitution prohibits Missouri from choosing the rule of law which it did. Pp. 269-278.
(b) A competent person has a liberty interest under the Due Process Clause in refusing unwanted medical treatment. Cf., e.g., Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 24 -30. However, the question whether that constitutional right has been violated must be determined by balancing the liberty interest against relevant state interests. For purposes of this case, it is assumed that a competent person would have a constitutionally protected right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition. This does not mean that an incompetent person should possess the same right, since such a person is unable to make an informed and voluntary choice to exercise that hypothetical right or any other right. While Missouri has in effect recognized that, under certain circumstances, a surrogate may act for the patient in electing to withdraw hydration and nutrition and thus cause death, it has established a procedural safeguard to assure that the surrogate's action conforms as best it may to the wishes expressed by the patient while competent."
Mr. Smith, I respect the ideas in your post and agree that we should discuss what actually constitutes natural rights. As for the Schiavo case, the right to die comes as the contrapositive to the natural right to live (an idea enshrined in American thought).
Brian asked a question I hadn't thought about before. Exactly what is the external justification for the "right to die"?
I wasn't very impressed by Cruzan. Good to know. But legal technicalities don't make political thought. And certainly, one case doesn't make political thought.
Jeff,
Could you elaborate?
<<...the right to die comes as the contrapositive to the natural right to live (an idea enshrined in American thought).>>
Has anyone discussed this? Jefferson? Madison? Hamilton? Jay? Coolidge? etc, etc, etc. That is a pretty bold assumption.
Jeff, it looks like you're saying the right to life, which I think we all accept as an inalienable natural right, implies a consequent right to die. It should be noted that another of the inalienable natural rights, that of liberty, does not imply a consequent right to slavery, self-imposed or otherwise. A number of thinkers (Hobbes, Locke, Mill, for example) have, with almost amusing uniformity, declared self-imposed slavery to be a right reserved for the thoroughly insane. So let's posit the following analogy: the right of liberty is to the right of slavery as the right of life is to the right of death. If the right of liberty does not imply the right of slavery, then the right of life does not imply a right of death, and certainly not a right of death that could be called "intrinsic."
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