Today, the “nanny-state” is omnipresent. Its latest pernicious intrusion pertains to pain-relief medication. Doctors are being told to restrict their prescriptions of opioids, the drugs (such as Percocet and Vicodin) used to reduce extreme pain. Why? Because the government is concerned about patients who overuse the drugs, leading to addiction and sometimes death. The idea
Several days ago 29-year-old Brittany Maynard exercised the final act of sovereignty over her life: she chose to end it. She had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer and, earlier this spring, had been given six months to live by her California physician. She considered spending her last days in a hospice, but, she explained:
[This was published in the Tampa Tribune and the Los Angeles Daily News, July 23, 2002] A precondition of freedom is the recognition of the individual’s capacity to make decisions for himself. If man were viewed as congenitally incapable of making rational choices, there would be no basis for the very concept of rights. Yet that