Rodrique Ngowi / Associated Press
FILE – In this image taken from video, Lynda Shannon Bluestein smiles during an interview in the living room of her home, Feb. 28, 2023, in Bridgeport, Conn. The state of Vermont on Tuesday, May 2, 2023, became the first state in the country to change its medically assisted suicide law to allow terminally ill people from out of state to take advantage of it to end their lives. Bluestein and Diana Barnard, a physician, sued Vermont in federal court last summer, claiming its residency requirement violated the Constitution’s commerce, equal protection, and privileges and immunities clauses. Barnard specializes in hospice and palliative care and has patients from neighboring New York state, which, like Connecticut, doesn’t allow medically assisted suicide. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi, File) 
Re “Physician-assisted suicide is not ethical care” (March 4): The doctor who wrote this article stated that death is the “enemy” of doctors and thus a doctor’s assistance is wrong. We all know that death is part of life and not its enemy. Death can be tragic, unwelcome, accepted or welcomed depending on the circumstances. But death is not our enemy, it is within us.
If the doctor does not agree to participate, that is his personal moral choice. But my life is my own and so is my death if I am fortunate enough to be able to choose it.
— Peter Zschiesche, San Diego
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