Two authors of viewpoints in the following chapter, Ben Mattlin and Geov Parrish, have severe disabilities. Both men are familiar with America's health care system, both have experienced extreme physical pain, and both are frustrated with the political powerlessness of the disabled. However, they hold opposing views on assisted suicide. For Parrish, the only person qualified to decide if a person's life is worth living is that person. Once an individual's life has become unendurable, he claims, the individual should be able to seek a painless end to suffering in assisted suicide, and neither the government nor anyone else should be able to interfere.

Mattlin, on the other hand, believes physicians should never be permitted to aid in the deaths of their patients. Permitting physicians to assist with suicides, he contends, could easily lead down a slippery slope to...