Ezekiel J. Emanuel

About the author: Ezekiel J. Emanuel is an oncologist and chief of the department of clinical bioethics at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health.

Public opinion is shifting against physician-assisted suicide. Society does not support the legalization of acts that end the lives of terminally ill patients. Modern medicine has made great advances in the fields of pain management and end-of-life care, making physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia unnecessary. Consequently, proponents of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia may be part of a dead movement.

Jack Kevorkian's luck has finally run out. After three previous acquittals, the poster boy for euthanasia was convicted of second-degree murder on March 26, 1999, and sentenced to ten to 25 years in prison. "You had the audacity to go on national television, show the...