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On Kamisar, Killing, And The Future Of Physician-Assisted Death, Norman L. Cantor

Michigan Law Review

Tens - perhaps hundreds - of thousands of trees could have been spared over the last forty-five years had opponents of physician-assisted death only been content to let Yale Kamisar be their exclusive spokesperson. Their movement would have lost no significant substance or persuasive force, for Kamisar's 1958 article - Some Non-Religious Views Against Proposed 'Mercy-Killing' Legislation - presaged the shape and content of the subsequent forty-five year debate over legalizing physician-assisted death ("PAD" ). Kamisar's article preceded by years the development of a whole jurisprudence relating to the withholding/withdrawing of life-sustaining medical treatment ("LSMT") and the administration of pain-relief …