Since the Supreme Court of New Jersey decided the Quinlan case a quarter of a century ago, three American Supreme Court decisions and a host of state appellate decisions have addressed end-of-life issues. These decisions, as well as legislation addressing the same issues, have prompted a torrent of law journal articles analyzing every aspect of end-of-life law. In recent years, moreover, a number of law review articles, many published in this journal, have also specifically addressed legal issues raised by palliative (...) care. Much less is known in the United States, however, as to how other countries address these issues. Reflection on the experience and analysis of other nations may give Americans a better understanding of their own experience, as well as suggest improvements to their present way of dealing with the difficult problems in this area.This article offers a conceptual and comparative analysis of major legal issues relating to end-of-life treatment and to the treatment of pain in a number of countries. In particular, it focuses on the law of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. (shrink)

Amongst other countries, the Netherlands currently allows euthanasia, provided the physician performing the procedure adheres to a strict set of requirements. In 2016, Second Chamber member Pia Dijkstra submitted a law proposal which would also allow euthanasia without the reason necessarily having any medical foundation; euthanasia on the basis of a completed life. The debate on this topic has been ongoing for over two decades, but this law proposal has made the discussion much more immediate and concrete. This paper considers (...) the moral permissibility of Pia Dijkstra’s law proposal, focusing on the ethics of the implementation Dijkstra describes in her proposal. I argue that, at present, Dijkstra’s law proposal is unsuitable for implementation, due to a number of as of yet unaddressed problems, including the possible development of an ageist stigma and undue pressure on the profession of end-of-life coordinator. Perhaps adequate responses can be conceived to address these issues. However, the existence of a radically different, yet currently equally unacceptable position regarding the implementation of euthanasia for a completed life as proposed by fellow party member Paul Schnabel suggests it may be difficult to formulate an ethically acceptable implementation for this, in principle, ethically acceptable concept. (shrink)