Does it make clinical sense to equate terminally ill patients who require life-sustaining interventions with those who do not?

Two US courts of appeals have ruled that competent, terminally ill have a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. The cases now before the US Supreme Court, which is expected to issue a ruling later year. This article analyzes the keystone of the courts' ruling: their that competent, terminally ill patients who are being kept alive on support are equivalent to competent, terminally ill patients who do not such support. Because the former are permitted to end their lives by treatment, the courts found that the latter also have a right to the time and manner of their death, through prescriptions for lethal of medication. This article analyzes whether the courts' thinking is on a clinically plausible view of the care of terminally ill. Based on a discussion of common situations involving terminal, we argue that the courts' reasoning is deeply flawed. The article analyzes how the implications of the courts' reasoning might undermine care of terminally ill patients.