Peter Schwartz on Brittany Maynard’s Assisted Suicide and the Right to Life

Over at The Huffington Post, ARI’s Distinguished Fellow and author of the upcoming In Defense of Selfishness: Why the Code of Self-Sacrifice Is Unjust and Destructive, Peter Schwartz argues that conservatives who oppose doctor-assisted suicide are, in fact, contradicting the actual right to life:

Conservatives largely oppose right-to-suicide laws. Many criticized Brittany Maynard’s decision. A Vatican official, Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, called it “an absurdity,” declaring that suicide “is a bad thing because it is saying no to life and to everything it means with respect to our mission in the world and towards those around us.” The National Right to Life organization quotes a woman condemning physician-assisted suicide because “it does not strengthen the common good, but only alienates, separates and dismantles us as a people who truly care for one another.”

Here’s a radical thought for conservatives: Brittany Maynard has a right to life — to her life. And a right to one’s life requires, as an inseparable corollary, the right to terminate it. What else is a right to some action if not the freedom to choose whether or not to engage in it?

Read the whole thing here.