BOB ABERNETHY: The underlying question, of course, is whether doctor-assisted suicide is right or wrong. Charlotte Ross is the executive director of the organization Death With Dignity. Father Kevin Wildes is a professor of ethics and associate director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. Dr. Joanne Lynn is director of the Center to Improve Care of the Dying at George Washington University. Ms. Ross, why should this be legal?

CHARLOTTE ROSS (Executive Director, Death With Dignity): We must respond to the people across this country who see their loved ones die, die very difficult deaths. And we must do more and markedly improve the health care that we give -- or certainly the palliative care, the compassionate care we give the dying. We must look at those few that, despite our best efforts, are going to die very difficult deaths.

ABERNETHY: So your argument is one from compassion, right?

Ms. ROSS: Absolutely.

ABERNETHY: Father Wildes.

Father KEVIN WILDES, S.J. (Georgetown University): Well, I think to make the legal change is to raise a significant moral issue about the intentional taking of human life. I mean, essentially, we govern much of what we do in terms of moral thought, as with the presupposition that one should never take innocent human life directly. And this is a radical change in that, in that stance.

ABERNETHY: Not even when the person wants it taken?

Father WILDES: Well, this is the question, I think -- the fundamental moral question is, does the person have the authority to ask to end their own life? Does the person have moral authority? Traditionally, Christianity says they don't. I mean, that's out of a Catholic perspective, I would say no. What we do as a secular society is we have to debate that.

Dr. JOANNE LYNN (George Washington University): Really, the issue isn't just whether a person can do this, because a person can kill themselves on their own motion at any time. It's whether we can make it easy, neat, proper behind a white coat, and that it seems raises all manner of risks to terribly vulnerable populations we already don't take very good care of. And if we have large numbers of people who are going to be put at risk, and some very small number of people who might really claim this in some legitimate way, it seems we must really be responsible about the vulnerable populations we're placing at risk.

ABERNETHY: Be specific about that. What would be an example of the vulnerable person who might be encouraged to say, "Yes, I want to be helped to die?"

Dr. LYNN: We do a terrible job right now in long-term care of serious, chronic disease. The 88-year-old widow living alone who has a stroke and faces going to a Medicaid nursing home, who faces leaving the few friends she has, becoming utterly impoverished, being taken care of by people who often don't even speak her language, and she might well say, "Look, this is a fatal disease. I've got less than six months to live. Doc, give me some pills." What am I supposed to do then? Am I supposed to become society's Nazi and, you know, be willing to do her in? Or am I suppose to say, "No, if you were rich you could do it, but since you're poor, you can't."