University of Minnesota Law School Scholarship Repository Minnesota Law Review 1958 Some Non-Religious Views against Proposed Mercy-Killing Legislation Yale Kamisar Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Kamisar, Yale, "Some Non-Religious Views against Proposed Mercy-Killing Legislation" (1958). Minnesota Law Review. 2588. https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr/2588 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Minnesota Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Minnesota Law Review collection by an authorized administrator of the Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. MINNESOTA LAW REVIEW Volume 42 May, 1958 No. 6 SOME NON-RELIGIOUS VIEWS AGAINST PROPOSED "MERCY-KILLING" LEGISLATION YALE KAMISAR* At the Crystal Palace Aquarium not long ago I saw a crab euthanatising a sickly fish, doubtless from the highest motiv.s2- A recent book, Glanville Williams' The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law,2 once again brings to the fore the controversial topic of euthanasia,3 more popularly known as "mercy killing". In keeping with the trend of the euthanasia movement over the past generation, Williams concentrates his efforts for reform on the voluntary type of euthanasia, for example, -the cancer victim beg- ging for death; as opposed to the involuntary variety, that is, the case of the congenital idiot, the permanently insane or the senile. *Associate Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School. This paper was aided by a research grant from the Graduate School of the Uni- versity of Minnesota.