DEAR EDITOR:

A recent column In the Experience titled “Should Suicide Be Optional?” startled me and gave me a sickening feeling in my stomach.

I do not want to address the issue of whether suicide is okay, but rather I choose to address the issue of what we call Physician-Assisted Suicide.

It is terribly sad when a person commits suicide, but when one is helped with committing suicide it is a problem.

I agree with Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s statement, as quoted in the article, that “death is not a crime.” But I believe assisting one in suicide definitely is. Think about it: You’re helping someone kill themself. It is said, “sanctioning assisted suicide would violate the rights of others.”

Doctors and nurses might find themselves “pressured” to cooperate in a patient’s suicide, as argued in an article written by students from Santa Clara University. Being that we each, individually, have a choice on whether we want to live or not, let’s not ask people to assist us in killing ourselves.

When you ask to be killed, you are pressuring someone to murder you, thus taking away his or her own freedom of choice. Don’t be one to help in killing and closing the curtains of life.

— Kamilah Tom