Jacob Appel is a doctor and a lawyer in New York City.

For many human beings, the value of their lives is inextricably linked to the quality of their lives, and life below a subjective threshold of quality is no longer worth living. To these individuals, assisted suicide need not be a rejection of life, but rather can serve as a final affirmation of a life well-lived. The option of assisted suicide also benefits many severely ill and elderly patients, offering them the solace of a potential escape from suffering if they ever desire it. Despite predictions that legalization would lead to abuses or to a decrease in palliative care, jurisdictions that have sanctioned the process, like the Netherlands and Oregon, have shown that a system of assisted suicide can be implemented responsibly.

How and when to end one’s life should be a decision that a competent adult makes in consultation with his family and his doctors.

If many Americans remain uncomfortable with assisted suicide, it is because they mistakenly believe that it will lead to forcible euthanasia of the disabled or elderly.

Unfortunately, most Americans still do not have this option. Some conservative political and religious figures, many also associated with the anti-abortion movement, have embraced opposition to assisted suicide as part of a broader “culture war” against progressive bioethics. At the same time, organizations like “Not Dead Yet” unfairly attempt to link voluntary assisted suicide with involuntary euthanasia. Although many religious leaders and disability-rights advocates favor assisted suicide, a public perception remains that these communities are opposed to legalization.

Alarmist predictions that assisted suicide will lead to the murder of vulnerable patients scare the public and poison debate on the subject. If many Americans remain uncomfortable with assisted suicide -- and polling data consistently shows that about half of us still do -- it is because they mistakenly believe that it will lead to forcible euthanasia of the disabled or elderly.

The more Americans know about the right-to-die movement, including the safeguards that reasonable people believe should be imposed as part of any system of consensual assisted suicide, the sooner aid-in-dying will be legalized in this country. A freedom-loving people would not want it any other way.