People of the United States of America have basic human rights. Among them are the rights to education and democracy, freedoms of speech, thought, and expression, and the right to life. However, currently, there is no right to die present in the U.S. The right to die is defined as the right of persons to choose natural death and refuse any medical measures to prolong their lives under the circumstances of terminal illnesses and the unlikeliness of them getting well (“Right-to-die”). “Death with Dignity” laws are present in a few states such as Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California, and Montana via court decision, but these laws are still not recognized on the federal level. For a terminally ill person, it is often not an option to move to one of these states to execute the right to die since the law has strict residency requirements, including state Driver License, filed state tax returns, lease or property ownership documentation (“Public Health’s Role”). Thus, the persons, being weak physically and mentally are forced medical care to prolong their lives by reducing the quality of them without any hope for recovery. Unmanageable health care costs become a burden on the family members and loved ones of the patients. Terminally ill patients should have a choice to die on their own terms to avoid further unbearable pain, to prevent the demolition of the quality of their lives, and to stop the sufferings of their loved ones.
The history of the right to die movements begins
Currently, six states have enacted the death-with-dignity law allowing a terminally ill patient the right to choose how their life ends after obtaining permission from those in authority. In 44 states, state law prohibits assisted suicide and an active participant considered as committing a criminal offence. The U.S. Supreme Court protects a patient’s liberty to refuse medical treatment, but continues to side with the government’s interest in preserving life outweighing a person’s right to assisted-suicide. According to the U.S. Code, “Assisted suicide, euthanasia, and mercy killing have been criminal offenses throughout the United States and, under current law, it would be unlawful to provide services in support of such illegal activities.” (U.S. Code)
The Declaration of Independence stated, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This shows that all Americans are secured with indisputable rights which must include the right to live life as well as end it if need be. Even though Physician Assisted Death is not listed in the Constitution, the Tenth Amendment states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” However, in forty-four states, terminally-ill patients do not have the right to die. Physician Assisted Death is when a terminally-ill patient undergoes counseling before a trusted doctor can prescribe a lethal dose of drugs for the patient to terminate his life peacefully. Having Physician Assisted Death available as an option to terminally-ill will allow patients to exercise their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, relieve them from unbearable pain, and lessen the agony of the patient’s family.
Contraceptives are widely used throughout the United States in today’s age and age, but in the early 1950s, Connecticut and Massachusetts were the only states in the union that still had anticontraception policies such as the 1879 Connecticut statute prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives (Johnson 6). Estelle Griswold accepted a job as executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and began a fight to give access for women to use contraceptives legally. It was very predictable the verdicts for the lower court cases during Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) as many judges took the side of the 1879 precedent. However, by the time it reached the Supreme Court, the main issue focused was the right to privacy which
When The United States came into being, the heads of the country made a great deal of emphasis in making sure the country fulfilled one requirement: the United States needed to be the living image of freedom. This image of freedom needed to exist not only as a geographical and political entity, meaning free from the English, but as a society as well, and that is why it opted for a democracy as a system to rule, to let the citizens be able to live freely. Despite the obvious issues presented in the country on that moment that we might call hypocrite, like slavery; the founding fathers knew what they wanted the country to achieve, and laid a great base for getting there, The Bill of Rights, the document that preceded the Constitution in
In the United States, the people matter. They are free, and can control what happens in government. The people have certain rights that allow them to do things that make them people, for example, thinking, speaking, and acting. The Founders of the US wanted to protect people’s basic rights as much as possible through the constitution. The Constitution explains, in great detail, that the people are sovereign.
While all the Court Justices in Griswold v. Connecticut agreed that the legislation prohibiting the use of contraception was purely irrational, Justices Douglas and Black differed with the Court’s judgment about the case decision. Justice Douglas expressed the majority’s opinion in which he stated that the Connecticut law that banned the use or supply of contraception was unconstitutional because it failed to obey the “right to privacy” derived from certain privacy rights listed on the Bill of Rights. On the other hand, Justice Black disagreed with Justice Douglas by stating that the rights enumerated by Douglas were a mere implication of privacy and that the “right to privacy” didn’t reflect anything stated directly on the Constitution.
The United States Constitution is a document that embodies the fundamental laws and principles by which the United States is governed, sets limits on what the government can and cannot do, as well as defines the natural rights, liberties, and freedoms of American citizens. It is arguably, the most important document ever crafted in American history and the one document that affects every single citizen within the United States every single day. It is thanks to this document that the United States citizens can enjoy the freedoms that they hold today, which are outlined in the bill of rights, as well as ensuring the citizens a fair form of government through a system of checks and balances, which guarantees that the government cannot bare qualities of tyranny, corruption, and ineptitude. For example, natural rights such as the freedom of speech, which is the first amendment in the bill of rights of the constitution, ensures that the citizens of a government have a voice in government policy and procedures by allowing them to participate in political discussion, to voice their opinions through debate, and to express their content or discontent with a government official or policy, as well as laying the foundation for all other freedoms and rights. The Constitution also prevents the government from becoming too powerful or tyrannical through the separation of powers, as well as places limitations on the powers of the government through provisions such as the Establishment
It is well known that the United States have been seen internationally as a key actor, for better or worse, when it comes to the field of universal human rights. At the same time, recent events have shown a disassociation between the words and actions of the nation. Despite the fact that these rights are supposed to be constitutionally-protected, the United States has been criticized for repeatedly violating them not only in the past but in recent memory: criminalization of poverty and homelessness, violation of the privacy of citizens all over the world, racism, police brutality, the prison-for-profit system, mistreatment or even torture of the prisoners. These are just some examples of the most common forms of human rights violations
constitutional rights. Prison is not a fun place to be even for the most harden criminals, and a correctional system is not an arena for solving the underlying causes of crime. Some states are facing severe budget cuts due to economic struggles and drops in tax revenues; therefore, not all prison facilities in the United States could offer rehabilitation, education, mental health services, and sanitary cells for convicted offenders.
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”. This statement is part of the Second Amendment in the United States that shows American citizens have an authority to own a gun legally to protect themselves. Since the United States was founded in 1776, this nation has grown up connected to firearms. After wars such as World War I and World War II, war industries led the United States to become one of the powerful nations in the world. Nowadays, this nation is the most influential and powerful country in the world in terms of culture, economy, society, military, and even war. It is not too much to say that today’s world is following the
John F. Kennedy once said, “ Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Indeed throughout the course of U.S. history, people’s liberty has been emphasized as one of the most important rights of American people. Liberty is understood as a basic right of freedom to which everyone can engage in certain actions without control or interference by a government or other power. Based on that principle, selective incorporation is a process of constitutional law in which some provisions of the Bill of Rights are nationalized to the states through the nationalization of Fourteenth
When a government that is created for the people, violates the rights of the people, its value will diminish and the core principles that uphold the State will decay leading to the downfall of the State. This is precisely the reason why I choose to affirm this resolution. Mass surveillance is a direct violation of the basic rights the United States of America was built upon. The core values, principles, beliefs, and morals that make the United States a democracy will be directly dismissed if mass surveillance is considered a justified method of governmental intelligence gathering. Mass surveillance does not only metaphorically rip apart the entire U.S. Constitution, but it would lead to the political demise of the United States of America. Privacy is considered of the basic Lockean rights which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Although, one important thing to note is that some forms of mass surveillance such as shop cameras or street cameras, may be justified, anything more is a direct breaching of rights. If the government cannot uphold these basic human rights, these basic rights of the people, how can it even serve as a public aid? If the government wants to gather intelligence from its people in order to protect the people, is it really protecting the people if the basic rights of the people are thrown away in the process? If this is true, then it must mean that the protection(the government) has turned in to the danger(the government). It is basic
September 17, 1787, our founding fathers established the United States of America constitution, made up of twenty-seven amendments, at the constitutional convention. Fourteen years later, two-thirds majority of the state ratification, necessary to make it legal, ratified the Bill of Rights. As part of the constitution, we have individual rights. These rights include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. With this, people from all around the world who come into the U.S, have the same rights as the citizens of the U.S. The early 1900s was a period of mass immigration for the United States. At the turn of the twentieth century religious preferences and political persecution were major reasons behind immigration. Many people came to
Why are adults suffering from a terminal illness not allowed to choose to end their life on their terms? From debates arising since the early 1900s to today in modern society, only a total of six states have legalized death with dignity including Oregon, Colorado, Washington, Vermont, California, and Montana where it is only legalized through a Supreme Court ruling. The controversy of allowing the process or not arises from various perspectives; people against legalizing death with dignity argue that the process is against their morals and religious beliefs whereas people who want the process legalized argue that everyone should have the right to end their life on their own terms. By allowing physician-assisted suicide terminally ill patients
America has been known to be a nation of the people for the people by the people, but there are individuals may argue a different point. There are those who would claim this country was founded it was founded by and for whit Europeans, people fled a broken system, but subsequently built a flawed system of their own. Our forefathers uprooted themselves and others in order to build the country we live in today. The question quickly becomes a matter of which is it? Upon close examination I believe it shall become quite clear that this country was founded with a certain interest in mind. Indeed, African Americans may not have “found” this land, and the aboriginals certainly had rights to the lands they tended and lived, yet