The right to die and euthanasia, also known as physician-assisted suicide, have long been topics of passionate debate. Euthanasia is simply mercy killing while the phrase "physician-assisted suicide" regards the administering or the provision of lethal means to aid in the ending of a person's life. The right to die entails the belief that if humans have the governmental and natural right to live and to prolong their lives then they should also have the right to end their life whenever desired. Articles such as Gary Cartwright's "Last Rights" and Margaret Somerville's "The Role of Death" provide the life support for these two topics will likely never fade away. Both articles cover physician-assisted suicide and the right to die. Cartwright's article is much more personal and easier for readers to relate to while Somerville's article is very aggressive and tries to persuade the reader with exhaustive vocabulary and unproven facts and statistics. .
To begin with, Somerville's article is in response to the rise in news coverage of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in Canada. Somerville wrote this article in defense of the anti-euthanasia movement, to reinforce people who are against euthanasia, and to inform those that are not familiar with the topic. This article could also sway those that are stuck in the middle. Somerville believes that euthanasia is absolutely morally and ethically wrong and completely unacceptable unless, in very rare cases, that someone is in excruciating and terminal pain and has zero chance of living a better life. Somerville supports this idea by using facts and statistics but some of them are not very well backed up or proven. One example is her quoting of Ruth Von Fuchs who is the president of the Right to Die Society of Canada. Somerville quotes Von Fuchs saying, "Life is not an obligation." This is an unfair quote because no relevant context was given besides that Von Fuchs was being interviewed on a Canadian morning television show when she said it.