The recent decision by President Obama to disband his predecessor's Council on Bioethics raises important questions regarding the role of professional bioethicists in contemporary society.

If Betty Coumbias had only six months left to live and expressed a desire to die, most assisted-suicide advocates would support her cause. Why should she have any less control over her life because she is in good health?

The right to remove an unwanted conceptus from one's uterus, and to choose one's intimate partners, and to end life on one's own terms, are each threads in the same social blanket.

While all Americans should have a right to decide how they want their lives to end, it does not follow that they should be able to avoid confronting such a choice.