Assisted suicide is a controversial new subject in political debates around the world. Modern medical technologies enable humans to end their own lives quickly and painlessly, with dignity and on their own schedule, which advocates say is often a better option than spending many years suffering in debilitating pain from terminal, uncurable illnesses. Two-thirds of Americans say they support legalizing doctor-assisted suicide in these cases, but it is currently legal in only 10 U.S. states or territories. Critics say that the government should not be legalizing or facilitating patient suicide, whether doctor-assisted or not, regardless of which conditions a patient may or may not have.

Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor Jordan Reid reviews the case of an American woman who chose to have an assisted suicide procedure done in Switzerland, and how she sees the future of the debate around assisted suicide unfolding here in the U.S.

The following is an excerpt from the above video:

I’ve always been fascinated by the debate around assisted suicide, largely because it’s so perplexing to me why anyone feels like they have a right to control another person’s body to that extent… but then I remembered that we’re living in the “your body, my choice” era. So it tracks. 

This debate is once again in the international spotlight, because last year the Sarco pod — its name derives from the word “sarcophagus” — was used in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, to facilitate the death of a 64-year-old American woman. What makes this pod different is that the chemicals that result in rapid unconsciousness and death are self-administered – the individual must initiate the actions that result in their death themselves. 

And yet in the recent case, onlookers and those involved with the setup of the pod were arrested following the American woman’s death. Authorities, it seems — and this makes sense — simply couldn’t parse the tremendous ethical and legal complexities associated with such a truly unprecedented development.