BY MELISSA IBARRA

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The debate over whether New Jersey will become the third state to legalize physician-assisted suicide continues with proponents arguing for patients to determine their own fate and opponents quaetioning the morality of the practice.

After Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester) introduced the Death With Dignity Act last September that allows a qualified patient to self-administer medication to end his or her life in a dignified manner.

 Burzichelli drew about 60 people to Rutgers-Camden Law School on Wednesday to discuss the legislation. He told the crowd that he had to question whether the government respects an inidvidual's rights when it comes to personal options of death, according to Philly.com.

“People seem to want to be in control of their circumstances, and they’re looking to the law,” Burzichelli said according to Philly.com. “Does the state law as presently structure adequately serve the people it governs? Should it change?”

Should it be our choice to end our lives through pills if we are terminally ill? How is this more humane than regular acts of suicide?

These are the type of questions that stir in the minds involved in this debate.

However, according to Fox News, Burzichelli told Star-Ledger, “People are not favorable to a Dr. Kevorkian suicide bill that says someone who’s 45 and depressed and decides to kill themselves with help" should be able to do that. "That’s not what this bill is.”

To some this assisted suicide may seem inhumane, however one blogger wrote, “when death is inevitable, and even when it isn’t, people who aren’t seriously depressed or mentally ill should be able to decide whether the want to keep on living. Why should anyone else be able to make that choice for someone?”

David Leven, an expert on advance directives and end-of-life policy, says the Death With Dignity bill simply gives people the option, one that many do not take.

“About one-third of those in Oregon and Washington who obtained the lethal drug doses never took them,” Leven said, referring to the two states that allow assisted suicide.

“The greatest human freedom is to live, and die, according to one’s own desires and beliefs,” according to Death with Dignity National Center.