After assessing the strengths and weaknesses of arguments for assisted suicide and euthanasia, Gorsuch builds a nuanced, novel, and powerful moral and legal argument against legalization, one based on a principle that, surprisingly, has largely been overlooked in the debate; the idea that human life is intrinsically valuable and that intentional killing is always wrong. At the same time, the argument Gorsuch develops leaves wide latitude for individual patient autonomy and the refusal of unwanted medical treatment and life-sustaining care, permitting intervention only in cases where an intention to kill is present.
Physician-Assisted Death is the eleventh volume of Biomedical Ethics Reviews. We, the editors, are pleased with the response to the series over the years and, as a result, are happy to continue into a second decade with the same general purpose and zeal. As in the past, contributors to projected volumes have been asked to summarize the nature of the literature, the prevailing attitudes and arguments, and then to advance the discussion in some way by staking out and arguing forcefully for some basic position on the topic targeted for discussion. For the present volume on Physician-Assisted Death, we felt it wise to enlist the services of a guest editor, Dr. Gregg A. Kasting, a practicing physician with extensive clinical knowledge of the various problems and issues encountered in discussing physician assisted death. Dr. Kasting is also our student and just completing a graduate degree in philosophy with a specialty in biomedical ethics here at Georgia State University. Apart from a keen interest in the topic, Dr. Kasting has published good work in the area and has, in our opinion, done an excellent job in taking on the lion's share of editing this well-balanced and probing set of essays. We hope you will agree that this volume significantly advances the level of discussion on physician-assisted euthanasia. Incidentally, we wish to note that the essays in this volume were all finished and committed to press by January 1993.
In this book the author makes a case for legalized physician-assisted dying. Using the latest data from Oregon and the Netherlands, he puts a new slant on perennial debate topics such as "slippery slopes," "the integrity of medicine," and "sanctity of life." This book provides an in-depth look at how we die in America today. It examines the shortcomings of our end-of-life system. You will learn about terminal torture in hospital ICUs and about the alternatives: hospice and palliative care. The author scrutinizes the good, the bad, and the ugly. He provides a critique of the practice of palliative sedation. The book makes a strong case that assisted dying complements hospice. By providing both, Oregon now has the best palliative-care system in America. This book, above all, may help you or someone you care about navigate this strange landscape we call "end of life." It can be an informed guide to "a good death" in the age of hospice and high-tech medical intervention.
claim was that he had faced a conflict of duties pitting his legal duty not to kill against his duty as a physician to relieve his patient’s unbearable suffering. He was acquitted on the important grounds of conflict of duty. These grounds are based on a concept in Dutch law called "force majeure" 4 which recognizes extenuating circumstances such as conflicts of duty. The acquittal was upheld by the Lower Court of Alkmaar, but revoked by an Amsterdam court of appeal. The case went on to the Supreme Court, but before the Supreme Court's decision was issued, the Royal Dutch Medical Association (RDMA) attempted to clarify the criteria for euthanasia that many within the profession already accepted. The RDMA proposed that physicians be permitted to perform euthanasia provided that a set of procedures had been met. Variously stated, the guidelines contain the following central provisions: Voluntary, competent, explicit, and persistent requests on the part of the • patient; Requests based on full information; • The patient is in a situation of intolerable and hopeless suffering (either • physical or mental); No further acceptable alternatives to euthanasia. All alternatives • acceptable to the patient for relief of suffering having been tried; Consultation with at least one other physician whose judgment can be • 5 expected to be independent. Indirectly, these guidelines became the criteria prosecutors used to decide whether or not to bring charges.
"Argues that people who promote the legalization of euthanasia ignore the vast ethical, legal and social differences between euthanasia and natural death. Permitting euthanasia, Somerville demonstrates, would cause irreparable harm to respect for human life and society." --Cover.
The proliferation of life-prolonging technology in recent years has made the controversy over the "right to die" and physician-assisted suicide one of the most explosive medical and ethical issues of our day. Dr. Jack Kevorkian's "suicide machine" has commanded front-page coverage for several years, while in 1994 Oregon passed a measure allowing the terminally ill to obtain lethal prescriptions for suicide, and other states have placed similar proposals on their ballots.
The moral issues involved in doctors assisting patients to die with dignity are of absolutely central concern to the medical profession, ethicists, and the public at large. The debate is fuelled by cases that extend far beyond passive euthanasia to the active consideration of killing by physicians. The need for a sophisticated but lucid exposition of the two sides of the argument is now urgent. This book supplies that need. Two prominent philosophers, Gerald Dworkin and R. G. Frey present the case for legalization of physician-assisted suicide. One of the best-known ethicists in the US, Sissela Bok, argues the case against.
This book provides novel perspectives on ethical justifiability of assisted dying in the revised edition of New Directions in the Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Going significantly beyond traditional debates about the value of human life, the ethical significance of individual autonomy, the compatibility of assisted dying with the ethical obligations of medical professionals, and questions surrounding intention and causation, this book promises to shift the terrain of the ethical debates about assisted dying. The novel themes discussed in the revised edition include the role of markets, disability, gender, artificial intelligence, medical futility, race, and transhumanism. Ideal for advanced courses in bioethics and healthcare ethics, the book illustrates how social and technological developments will shape debates about assisted dying in the years to come.
In this new addition to the 'Debating Law' series, Emily Jackson and John Keown re-examine the legal and ethical aspects of the euthanasia debate. Emily Jackson argues that we owe it to everyone in society to do all that we can to ensure that they experience a 'good death'. For a small minority of patients who experience intolerable and unrelievable suffering, this may mean helping them to have an assisted death. In a liberal society, where people's moral views differ, we should not force individuals to experience deaths they find intolerable. This is not an argument in favour of dying. On the contrary, Jackson argues that legalisation could extend and enhance the lives of people whose present fear of the dying process causes them overwhelming distress. John Keown argues that voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are gravely unethical and he defends their continued prohibition by law. He analyses the main arguments for relaxation of the law - including those which invoke the experience of jurisdictions which permit these practices - and finds them wanting. Relaxing the law would, he concludes, be both wrong in principle and dangerous in practice, not least for the dying, the disabled and the disadvantaged.
