SUICIDE, ASSISTED SUICIDE, ACTIVE EUTHANASIA

required) and fully voluntary(an advocate for the patient might be appointed to ensure this).

3. All reasonable alternatives to improving the patient’s quality of life and relieving any pain or suffering must have been explored.

4. A psychiatric evaluation should ensure that the patient’s request is not the result of a treatable psychological impairment such as depression.”

CONCLUSIONS

Death is part of the meaning of life. How one dies ought to be consistent with how one lived one’s life. In most case we do not have choices about the way we die. Judaism values the pursuit of health and the preservation of life as very important mitzvor. Arguments against capital punishment in Judaism exhibit an extreme theological resistance, even to the termination of the life of one who has committed a capital offense. Therefore, extreme caution must be taken that permission given in"hard cases" does not become a slippery slope through which people will be encouraged to"do the right thing" and terminate their lives or ask others to do it for them. However it is also clear in Judaism that biological life, while an important value, is not a supreme value which overrides all other considerations. Therefore, in extreme situations, the termination of human life is not considered a sin, but is in fact praiseworthy. The determining factor is whether the termination of life is consistent with the preservation of the person as a being created b’tzelem elohim. In other words, does the continuation of biological life violate the sacred character of the individual's life? Therefore, the aggadah, the sacred narrative of a person’s life, becomes part of the halakhic decision-making process. Ideally the person, family, physician, and rabbi® will be involved in the initial decision. The decision would

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