Advocates for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia (PAS/E) contend that the wrongness of causing death and the obligation to respect life depends on the person’s desire for life. On this view, causing death is permissible so long as the person voluntarily determines that she no longer wants to be alive. In other words, the value of life and the obligation to respect life are subject-dependent. This paper will argue that this view is mistaken because it is consistent with the subject-independent nature of the value we place upon persons in actual social practice. The argument proceeds as follows. First, we recognize that both advocates and opponents of PAS/E profess support for the value of persons. This shared support for human value provides a point of shared common ground in moral deliberation. Second, we recognize that both advocates and opponents of PAS/E recognize that the value of persons is intrinsic to persons, not extrinsic or contingent upon personal characteristics (race, sex, etc.). Few would affirm that human value depends only on one’s utility to others. While contemporary social practices are admittedly inconsistent on this point, it is widely agreed that no person should ever be regarded or treated purely as a means to an end, as evidenced by moral prohibitions against sexual slavery and closely guarded restrictions on human experimentation and organ donation. Such agreement entails a consensus denial of the claim any person could have only extrinsic value. This, in turn, entails consensus support for the belief that persons have intrinsic value (over and above potential extrinsic value to themselves or others). Third, we recognize that the possession of intrinsic value entails that one’s existence is an intrinsic good. If something has intrinsic value, then—by definition—it is good that it exists. Since intrinsic value is not contingent or subject-independent, the goodness of existing is also not contingent or subject-independent. Therefore, the permissibility of causing death cannot be contingent merely upon the person’s subjective desire for life. We conclude that one cannot consistently accept both a belief in intrinsic human value and a belief in the permissibility of voluntary PAS/E. Accepting PAS/E would require a denial of intrinsic value and a willingness to remove prohibitions on treating persons as means to ends. A number of objections will be addressed. First, that human value may be said to be intrinsic in the sense that the person’s self-regard is the basis for their own value. Such an understanding of value might seem consistent with the permissibility of voluntary PAS/E. Second, that the argument may seem to prove too much, since the intrinsic goodness of existence might on the face of it forbid discontinuation of life-sustaining therapies. The paper concludes with some reflections on what it means to express “value in action” in the practice of medicine.