During the last decade of the 19th century, the debate on euthanasia involved not just the medical professionals but included lawyers and social scientists among the active arguers. As a result of a perceived antagonism between lawyers and physicians which was already observed even then, lawyers called for the granting of greater rights to patients, including the right to end their own lives. An example was Albert Bach, a lawyer from New York who started speaking in different conferences in the 1890s to support euthanasia.
During a Medico-Legal Congress which was held in 1895, Bach’s endorsement for euthanasia was based on the belief that terminal patients should be granted the right to decide if and when they wanted to end their own lives. Simeon Baldwin, another lawyer who became president of the American Social Science Association in 1899, delivered a speech in support of euthanasia. In his speech, he lambasted the practice of some physicians of continuing to extend the lives of patients who were suffering extreme pain in spite of the fact that no treatment to their terminal illnesses were in sight.
Specifically, he attacked the “pride of many in the medical profession to prolong such lives at any cost of discomfort or pain to the sufferer. ” The lawyers’ endorsements were however vehemently opposed by many physicians, arguing that acceding to or even merely acknowledging their arguments would discredit the medical profession (Emanuel). During the early part of the twentieth century, the euthanasia debate made its entry into the political forums.
Sometime in 1906, Harvard professor Charles Eliot Norton spoke in defense of euthanasia. After hearing of his position, Anna Hill, a resident of Ohio and whose mother was then a cancer patient, was encouraged to wage an active campaign to have euthanasia legalized in the state of Ohio. Her efforts resulted to a bill entitled “An Act Concerning Administration of Drugs etc. to Mortally Injured and Diseased Persons” which was introduced by State Representative Hunt.
The bill, the purpose of which was to move for the legalization of euthanasia in Ohio, while receiving considerable interest, earned the ire of the New York Times which condemned not only the bill but also Professor Norton’s part in encouraging both Representative Hunt and Anna Hill. The British Medical Journal joined the New York Times in attacking the bill, contending that filing such an act showed that “America is a land of hysterical legislation. ” Finally, the bill was defeated in the Ohio legislature by a vote of 79 against and 23 in favor (Emanuel).