Abstract

This dissertation explores factors that contribute to patient requests for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. Among these are physical pain, emotional, existential and spiritual suffering, loss of hope, and social isolation. The basic premise of the work is that if these factors can be addressed through appropriate and compassionate medical care as well as a sound theology of suffering and death, then physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia will become much less of an issue. ;In the first section of the work current legal and ethical debates on the issues of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, as well as advances in pain management technologies are explored. In the second section the writings of Karl Rahner and Emmanuel Levinas are placed in dialogue with each other in order to arrive at an intersubjective model for responsible health care ethics which emphasizes both personal spirituality and responsibility for the Other. The final section presents a model course for medical education which implements the holistic approach presented in the body of the work