This work intends to defend the right to physician-assisted suicide based on the classical liberalism of John Stuart Mill. He is worth looking at in the debate over physician-assisted suicide because of his importance in the area of liberty and individual rights. The United States has generally sought to be a nation that allows as much individual freedom as possible. A principle that articulates this idea is Mill's "harm principle", and is found in his classic work On Liberty . This principle states that a person should be free to pursue individual plans, goals, and happiness as long as it does not harm others.
Of course the term "harm" is a general term and could be interpreted many different ways. This work looks at many of the key arguments in the debate over physician-assisted suicide and tries to apply Mill's harm principle. In analyzing the arguments that oppose its practice, and looking at examples that Mill himself uses in On Liberty , there does not seem to be sufficient harm to justify an interference with a person's liberty to choose physician-assisted suicide, provided that choice is made in a rational and voluntary manner. Therefore, if we are truly committed to the general idea of Mill's harm principle, the choice of physician-assisted suicide should be an individual right in the United States.
