Assisting suicide is legal in Switzerland if it is offered without selfish motive to a person with decision-making capacity. Although the ‘Swiss model’ for suicide assistance has been extensively described in the literature, the formally and informally protected liberties and claims of assistors and recipients of suicide assistance in Switzerland are incompletely captured in the literature. In this article, we describe the package of rights involved in the ‘Swiss model’ using the framework of Hohfeldian rights as modified (...) by Wenar. After outlining this framework, we dissect the rights involved in suicide assistance in Switzerland, and compare it with the situation in England and Germany. Based on this approach, we conclude that in Switzerland, claim rights exist for those requesting suicide assistance, and for those who are considering providing such assistance, even though no entitlements exist toward suicide assistance. We then describe the implementation of the ‘Swiss model’ and difficulties arising within it. Clarifying these issues is important to understand the Swiss situation, to evaluate what features of it may or may not be worth correcting or emulating, and to understand how it can impact requests for suicide assistance in other countries due to ‘suicide tourism’. It is also important to understand exactly what sets Switzerland apart from other countries with different legislations regarding suicide assistance. (shrink)

Assisting suicide is legal in Switzerland if it is offered without selfish motive to a person with decision-making capacity. Although the ‘Swiss model’ for suicide assistance has been extensively described in the literature, the formally and informally protected liberties and claims of assistors and recipients of suicide assistance in Switzerland are incompletely captured in the literature. In this article, we describe the package of rights involved in the ‘Swiss model’ using the framework of Hohfeldian rights as modified (...) by Wenar. After outlining this framework, we dissect the rights involved in suicide assistance in Switzerland, and compare it with the situation in England and Germany. Based on this approach, we conclude that in Switzerland, claim rights exist for those requesting suicide assistance, and for those who are considering providing such assistance, even though no entitlements exist toward suicide assistance. We then describe the implementation of the ‘Swiss model’ and difficulties arising within it. Clarifying these issues is important to understand the Swiss situation, to evaluate what features of it may or may not be worth correcting or emulating, and to understand how it can impact requests for suicide assistance in other countries due to ‘suicide tourism’. It is also important to understand exactly what sets Switzerland apart from other countries with different legislations regarding suicide assistance. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I examine the arguments against physician assisted suicide . Many of these arguments are consequentialist. Consequentialist arguments rely on empirical claims about the future and thus their strength depends on how likely it is that the predictions will be realized. I discuss these predictions against the backdrop of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act and the practice of PAS in the Netherlands. I then turn to a specific consequentialist argument against PAS – Susan M. Wolf's feminist (...) critique of the practice. Finally, I examine the two most prominent deontological arguments against PAS. Ultimately, I conclude that no anti‐PAS argument has merit. Although I do not provide positive arguments for PAS, if none of the arguments against it are strong, we have no reason not to legalize it. (shrink)

As medical technology advances and severely injured or ill people can be kept alive and functioning long beyond what was previously medically possible, the debate surrounding the ethics of end-of-life care and quality-of-life issues has grown more urgent. In this lucid and vigorous book, Craig Paterson discusses assisted suicide and euthanasia from a fully fledged but non-dogmatic secular natural law perspective. He rehabilitates and revitalises the natural law approach to moral reasoning by developing a pluralistic account of just (...) why we are required by practical rationality to respect and not violate key demands generated by the primary goods of persons, especially human life. Important issues that shape the moral quality of an action are explained and analysed: intention/foresight; action/omission; action/consequences; killing/letting die; innocence/non-innocence; person/non-person. Paterson defends the central normative proposition that ’it is always a serious moral wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human person, whether self or another, notwithstanding any further appeal to consequences or motive’. (shrink)

David Shaw presents a new argument to support the old claim that there is not a significant moral difference between killing and letting die and, by implication, between active and passive euthanasia. He concludes that doctors should not make a distinction between them. However, whether or not killing and letting die are morally equivalent is not as important a question as he suggests. One can justify legal distinctions on non-moral grounds. One might oppose physician- assisted suicide and active (...) euthanasia when performed by doctors on patients whether or not one is in favour of the legalisation of assisted suicide and active euthanasia. Furthermore, one can consider particular actions to be contrary to appropriate professional conduct even in the absence of legal and ethical objections to them. Someone who wants to die might want only a doctor to kill him or to help him to kill himself. However, we are not entitled to everything that we want in life or death. A doctor cannot always fittingly provide all that a patient wants or needs. It is appropriate that doctors provide their expert advice with regard to the performance of active euthanasia but they can and should do so while, qua doctors, they remain hors de combat. (shrink)

Kevin Yuill goes straight to the heart of a difficult issue. Critical of both sides of the discussion, this book presents an up-to-date analysis of the direction discussion is taking, showing that atheists, libertarians, those favouring abortion rights and stem-cell research should stand beside their religious compatriots in opposing legalization of assisted suicide. The author shows that the real issue behind the debate is not euthanasia but suicide. Rather than focusing on tragic cases, he indicates the real (...) damage that will be done if we affirm the suicidal wishes of even a small segment of the population. Analyzing the movement for the right to die in historical terms, Yuill shows that, though many proponents of a change in the law believe they are rationalist heirs of such thinkers as John Stuart Mill, legalizing assisted suicide will reduce privacy and freedom. Finally, Yuill suggests a radical alternative to legalization of assisted suicide that would embrace both the cause of freedom and the anxieties of many about securing good deaths. (shrink)

Assisted suicide, many argue, honors self‐determination in returning control of their dying to patients themselves. But physician assistance and measures proposed to safeguard patients from coercion in fact return ultimate authority over this “private and deeply personal” decision to medicine and society.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide have proved to be very contentious topics in medical ethics. Some ethicists are particularly concerned that allowing physicians to carry out these procedures will undermine their professional obligations and threaten the very goals of medicine. However, I maintain that the fundamental goals of medicine not only do not preclude the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide by physicians, but can in fact be seen to support these practices in some instances. I look (...) at two influential views of the goals of medicine, one based on the broad guiding principles of autonomy, beneficence and nonmaleficence, and the other focusing on several more concrete aims, concluding that both approaches can be seen to support euthanasia and assisted suicide. I then turn to the popular concern that allowing physicians to carry out euthanasia and assisted suicide will lead to widespread abuse. I argue that the possibility for abuse can be minimised if we make the patient's autonomous consent an essential requirement of the practice. (shrink)

The ethical problems surrounding voluntary assisted suicide remain formidable, and are unlikely to be resolved in pluralist societies. An examination of historical attitudes to suicide suggests that modernity has inherited a formidable complex of religious and moral attitudes to suicide, whether assisted or not. Advocates usually invoke the ending of intolerable suffering as one justification for euthanasia of this kind. This does not provide an adequate justification by itself, because there are (at least theoretically) methods (...) which would relieve suffering without causing the physical death of the suffering person. Carried to extremes, these methods would finish the life worth living, but leave a being which was technically alive. Such acts, however, would provide no moral escape, since they would create beings without meaning. Arguments seeking to justify ending the lives of others need some grounding in concepts of the meaning of a life. The euthanasia discourse therefore needs to take at least some account of the meaning we construct for our lives and the lives of others. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Rolf Ahlzén treats a moral problem related to physician-assisted suicide and the notion of authenticity. The problem is whether considerations of a patient’s “true self” should be included in judgments of PAS. In this short commentary, it is argued that Ahlzén neglects to attend to central contributions to the philosophy of authenticity, provides an internally inconsistent theory thereof, and conflates crucial distinctions in the debate.

This book provides a history of Nazi medical euthanasia programs, demonstrating that arguments in their favor were widely embraced by Western medicine before the Third Reich. Contributors find significant continuities between history and current physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia and urge caution about their legalization or implementation.

The debate about physician-assisted suicide has long been entwined with the nature of the doctor–patient relationship. Opponents of physician-assisted suicide insist that the traditional goals of medicine do not and should not include intentionally bringing about or hastening a patient’s death, whereas proponents of physician-assisted suicide argue that this practice is an appropriate tool for doctors to relieve a patient’s suffering. In this article, I discuss these issues in light of the relevance of a (...) Christian account of the doctor–patient relationship. I argue that Christians typically object to assist suicide independently of the doctor–patient relationship. I argue that a focus on the Christian virtues of charity, compassion, and humility helps to explain why doctors should not assist their patients in suicide. (shrink)

In this chapter I consider the narrow and wider benefits of permitting assisted dying in the specific context of organ donation and transplantation. In addition to the commonly used arguments, there are two other neglected reasons for permitting assisted suicide and/or euthanasia: assisted dying enables those who do not wish to remain alive to prolong the lives of those who do, and also allows many more people to fulfill their wish to donate organs after death. In (...) the first part of this chapter I explore the possibility of allowing those who die with assistance to donate their organs and the potential benefits of doing so in countries where some form of assisted dying is legal; in the second part I consider the added force that organ donation considerations bring to the argument in favour of legalizing assisted dying in countries where such practices remain forbidden. (shrink)

The "California Compassionate Choices Act," AB 374, is inching its way into the voter's booth. Are you ready to vote for or against physician-assisted suicide? California is not the only state facing this issue, and as a responsible citizen you will not be able to escape taking a position on this important social and personal moral question. This collection of essays was gleaned from the Jack W. Provonsha Lecture Series on physician-assisted suicide. Representing a variety of (...) religious perspectives, the speakers address this topic in the hope that you will be more informed and better able to face this issue. (shrink)

Discussions in Germany regarding appropriate end-of-life decision-making have been heavily influenced by the liberalization of access to physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia in the Netherlands and Belgium. These discussions disclose conflicting moral views regarding the propriety of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, threatening conflicts within not only the medical profession, but also the mainline churches in Germany, whose membership now entertains views regarding end-of-life decision-making at odds with traditional Christian doctrine. On the surface, there appears to (...) be a broad consensus supporting the hospice movement and condemning physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. The German Supreme Court has held that treatment decisions should, in absence of known patients’ wishes, be made in light of commonly shared values, unless these violate the principle of “in dubio pro vita”. The Roman Catholic church and the Evangelical Lutheran church in Germany have developed an advance directive for treatment choices at the end of life, while condemning physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This stance is in tension with the strong emerging support for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, a development that promises to open up foundational disagreements within mainline German Christianity regarding the appropriate approach to intentionally terminating human life. (shrink)

In the United States, judicialrulings that unrealistically addressed the complexityof cases and demonstrated limited understanding ofprinciples, helped to create a legal quagmire whichlegislatures had to confront. Moreover, thelegislative response was often slow and inadequate interms of both the scope and clarity of the laws. However, since the 1970s, progress has been made onmany fronts, particularly in regard to advancedirectives dealing with end-of-life decisions. Thedebate over physician-assisted suicide has spawned arepetition of moral and legal arguments. Thoseagainst legalization have failed (...) to make a realisticappraisal of the dilemmas facing patients and theirfamilies in an age of technological medicine deliveredin the context of the marketplace. The underlyingproblem is a system in dire need of reform that willno longer treat health care as a commodity of themarketplace and provide universal health care. Terminal care as an integral part of health care willsubstantially benefit from such reforms because amajor obstacle to comprehensive palliative care is thecondition of the present system. (shrink)

In an age of rapid advances inlife-prolonging treatment, patients and caregivers areincreasingly facing tensions in making end-of-lifedecisions. An examination of the history of healthcare in the United States reveals technological,economic, and medical factors that have contributed tothe problems of terminal care and consequently to themovement of assisted suicide. The movement has itsroots in at least two fundamental perceptions andexpectations. In the age of technological medicineenergized by the profit motive, dying comes at a highprice in suffering and in personal (...) economic loss. Thefailure to provide affordable resources for terminalcare is the result of the marketplace in health care. The medical profession has been painfully slow inresponding to the challenges of terminal care, mainlybecause of the pressures of the marketplace and lackof adequate training. This has occurred at a time ofrapid advances in life-sustaining treatment and ofexpanding public awareness of personal rights underthe law. Overly aggressive treatment in the finalstages of terminal illness has enhanced anxieties overa painfully prolonged and expensive dying. Thesefactors have promoted the movement to assistedsuicide. In the U.S. debate of the issues, ethiciststend to argue abstractly without examiningadequately the context of terminal care that is thehealth care system. It is a system in dire need of areform that will remove it from the marketplace. (shrink)

Contributors explore the social, medical, and ethical dilemma of assisted suicide in this revised edition that includes international as well as domestic viewpoints. The federal government's continued challenges to Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, the disabled community's response to assisted suicide, and the slippery slope argument are all examined.

The lack of consensus in American society regarding the permissibility of assisted suicide and euthanasia is due in large part to a failure to address the nature of the human person involved in the ethical act itself. For Karol Wojtyla, philosopher and Pope, ethical action finds meaning only in an authentic understanding of the person; but it is through acting ( actus humanus ) alone that the human person reveals himself. Knowing what the person ought to be cannot (...) be divorced from what he ought to do; forWojtyla, the structure of the ethical “do” – the act itself – comes first. The current paper will focus on four arguments used to justify assisted suicide and euthanasia: (1) the argument from autonomy, (2) the argument from compassion, (3) the argument from the evil of suffering, and (4) the argument from the loss of dignity. It will seek to answer each claim from the perspective of Karol Wojtyla's philosophical anthropology. Much of this will come from his defining work in pure philosophy, The Acting Person (1969). The final part of the paper will suggest some positive solutions to the stalemate over the euthanasia debate, again drawn from Wojtyla's idea of human fulfillment through participation with the other, and with the community itself. (shrink)

The target article describes a Dutch case that happened in 2008, where Albert Heringa helped his 98-year-old mother, whose general practitioner rejected her request for an assisted d...

According to the “discrimination argument,” it would be discriminatory and hence impermissible to categorically exclude people with mental illness (PMI) from access to assisted suicide (AS) if AS is accessible to people with somatic illnesses. In objection to this, it could be argued that excluding PMI is not discriminatory, but rather based on their inability to meet certain eligibility criteria for AS. Which criteria are deemed necessary depends on the approach taken to justifying AS. In this article, we (...) describe two distinct ethical approaches to justifying AS and the eligibility criteria they entail and examine whether PMI can fulfill these criteria. A widespread “joint” approach based on beneficence and autonomy assumes that AS is justified when it alleviates the severe and irremediable suffering of a person who autonomously requests AS. An alternative, exclusively autonomy‐based approach assumes that providing AS is justified when a person's request is autonomous, regardless of whether AS is in her best interests. The latter approach underlies an important judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court from 2020. We argue that PMI can in principle fulfill both beneficence‐ and autonomy‐based eligibility criteria for AS, and that a blanket exclusion of all PMI from AS is thus discriminatory on either approach. However, depending on which approach is taken, there are differences regarding the subgroups of PMI that would be eligible for AS. Whether the exclusion of specific PMI is discriminatory therefore depends on how we understand and justify AS. (shrink)

A review of the literature was conducted to better understand the (potential) role of mental health professionals in physician-assisted suicide. Numerous studies indicate that depression is one of the most commonly encountered psychiatric illnesses in primary care settings. Yet, depression consistently goes undetected and undiagnosed by nonpsychiatrically trained primary care physicians. Noting the well-studied link between depression and suicide, it is necessary to question giving sole responsibility of assisting patients in making end-of-life treatment decisions to these physicians. (...) Unfortunately, the use of mental health consultation by these physicians is not a common occurrence. Greater involvement of mental health professionals in this emerging and debated area is advocated. Beyond describing mental health professionals' role in the assessment of patient competency or decision making capacity, other areas of potential involvement are described. A discussion of ethical principles relevant to this area follows, along with comments on the training necessary to adequately serve patient needs. (shrink)

The legalization of physician-assisted suicide remains a hotly debated issue throughout the United States, and continues to capture the attention of government officials at both the state and federal levels. While the practice is currently legal in Oregon, some federal lawmakers and officials from the U.S. Department of Justice have attempted to outlaw that state's practice through legislation, or through a strained interpretation of the federal Controlled Substances Act. And while several citizen groups throughout the United States have (...) attempted but failed to legalize PAS through popular initiative, several state lawmakers have succeeded in specifically outlawing the practice. Yet even though physician-assisted suicide remains unlawful in every state except Oregon, there is ample evidence that American physicians throughout the United States have participated in PAS by providing their terminally ill patients with lethal prescriptions. (shrink)

The legalization of physician-assisted suicide remains a hotly debated issue throughout the United States, and continues to capture the attention of government officials at both the state and federal levels. While the practice is currently legal in Oregon, some federal lawmakers and officials from the U.S. Department of Justice have attempted to outlaw that state's practice through legislation, or through a strained interpretation of the federal Controlled Substances Act. And while several citizen groups throughout the United States have (...) attempted but failed to legalize PAS through popular initiative, several state lawmakers have succeeded in specifically outlawing the practice. Yet even though physician-assisted suicide remains unlawful in every state except Oregon, there is ample evidence that American physicians throughout the United States have participated in PAS by providing their terminally ill patients with lethal prescriptions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I examine the arguments against physician assisted suicide (PAS). Many of these arguments are consequentialist. Consequentialist arguments rely on empirical claims about the future and thus their strength depends on how likely it is that the predictions will be realized. I discuss these predictions against the backdrop of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act and the practice of PAS in the Netherlands. I then turn to a specific consequentialist argument against PAS – Susan M. Wolf's (...) feminist critique of the practice. Finally, I examine the two most prominent deontological arguments against PAS. Ultimately, I conclude that no anti‐PAS argument has merit. Although I do not provide positive arguments for PAS, if none of the arguments against it are strong, we have no reason not to legalize it. (shrink)

In brief compass, I will touch on three of the central ethical and public policy issues that divide those who are opposed to physician-assisted dying from those who are supportive of this practice. These are: the moral distinction between actively hastening death and passively allowing to die; how to interpret the Hippocratic tradition in medicine with respect to physician-assisted death; and whether physician-assisted suicide can be effectively regulated. I shall summarize the arguments pro and con with (...) respect to each issue, and also indicate my own position. (shrink)

In this article, I shall present three arguments for thc pcrmissibility 0f physician-assisted suicide (PAS), and then examine several objections 0f 21 "K21nti2m" and non-Kantian nature against them. These are really 0bjcctions against certain types of suicide. I shall focus 0n active PAS (eg., when 21 patient takes 21 lethal drug given by E1 physician, in which case both thc physician and patient are active). I shall assume the patient is 21 competent, responsible, rational agent, who gives (...) his being in physical discomfort (pain, nausea, ctc.) as thc reason for intending his death. I am assuming, therefore, thc pain while 21 sourcc of suffering docs not undermine his rational agency in 21 way that threatens responsibility for choice.] Current legal proposals for permitting PAS focus 0n procedures.. (shrink)

Some disability rights (DR) advocates oppose physician-assisted suicide (PAS) laws like Oregon’s on the grounds that they reflect ableist prejudice: how else can their limit on PAS eligibility to the terminally ill be explained? The paper answers this DR objection. It concedes that the limit in question cannot be defended on soft paternalist grounds, and offers a hard paternalist defense of it. The DR objection makes two mistakes: it overlooks the possibility of a hard paternalist defense of the (...) limit, and it confuses terminal illness, which is at best one type of disability, with disability itself. (shrink)

Until recently, physician assisted suicide was dealt with on the same basis as active voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands. Over the last years, several cases relating to assistance in suicide of mental patients did raise specific issues, not addressed so far in the debate on euthanasia. One of these cases resulted in a Supreme Court decision. The paper summarizes this decision and comments on it from a legal point of view.

A defense of Physician-assisted suicide as ethically justifiable, and as legally permissible.

The traditional Christian focus concerning dying is on repentance, not dignity. The goal of a traditional Christian death is not a pleasing, final chapter to life, but union with God: holiness. The pursuit of holiness requires putting on Christ and accepting His cross. In contrast, post-traditional Christian and secular concerns with self-determination, control, dignity, and self-esteem make physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia plausible moral choices. Such is not the case within the context of the traditional Christian experience (...) of God, which throughout its 2000 years has sternly condemned suicide and assisted suicide. The wrongness of such actions cannot adequately be appreciated outside the experience of that Christian life. Traditional Christian appreciations of death involve an epistemology and metaphysics of values in discordance with those of secular morality. This difference in the appreciation of the meaning of dying and death, as well as in the appreciation of the moral significance of suicide, discloses a new battle in the culture wars separating traditional Christian morality from that of the surrounding society. (shrink)

Until recently, physician assisted suicide was dealt with on the same basis as active voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands. Over the last years, several cases relating to assistance in suicide of mental patients did raise specific issues, not addressed so far in the debate on euthanasia. One of these cases resulted in a Supreme Court decision. The paper summarizes this decision and comments on it from a legal point of view.

Background In Switzerland, right-to-die organisations assist their members with suicide by lethal drugs, usually barbiturates. One organisation, Dignitas, has experimented with oxygen deprivation as an alternative to sodium pentobarbital. Objective To analyse the process of assisted suicide by oxygen deprivation with helium and a common face mask and reservoir bag. Method This study examined four cases of assisted suicide by oxygen deprivation using helium delivered via a face mask. Videos of the deaths were provided by (...) the Zurich police. Dignitas provided protocol and consent information. Results One man and three women were assisted to death by oxygen deprivation. There was wide variation in the time to unconsciousness and the time to death, probably due to the poor mask fit. Swiss law prevented attendants from effectively managing the face mask apparatus. Purposeless movements of the extremities were disconcerting for Dignitas attendants, who are accustomed to assisting suicide with barbiturates. None of the dying individuals attempted self-rescue. Conclusions The dying process of oxygen deprivation with helium is potentially quick and appears painless. It also bypasses the prescribing role of physicians, effectively demedicalising assisted suicide. Oxygen deprivation with a face mask is not acceptable because leaks are difficult to control and it may not eliminate rebreathing. These factors will extend time to unconsciousness and time to death. A hood method could reduce the problem of mask fit. With a hood, a flow rate of helium sufficient to provide continuous washout of expired gases would remedy problems observed with the mask. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze the legal situation regarding physician-assisted suicide in the world. Our hypothesis is that the prohibitive stance on physician-assisted suicide in most societies in the world today seems to be related to our moral attitudes toward suicide. This brings us to a discussion about life itself. We claim that the total lack of legal protection for physician-assisted suicide from international organizations and most countries in the world lies in a (...) philosophical assumption that supports much of our common beliefs about what life really is. This assumption states that life must be thought of as not belonging exclusively to the individual. We argue that this assumption is a misconception that can be heard in the debate on suicide. Consequently we endorse a different conception of life which tends to favor a pro-choice stance towards suicide and assisted death in general. This position takes the patient’s decision about when to die more seriously. We conclude that there is no reason why physician-assisted suicide does not deserve legal protection as an individual right to die under international law. (shrink)

Apologists for physician-assisted suicide maintain that democracy's commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness entitles any rational adult to decide when to end one's life. Yet the procedure nullifies freedom and the right to life, and is thus anti-democratic. Both on the practical and theoretical levels, assisted suicide leads to involuntary euthanasia. On the theoretical level, the distinction between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia is clear, but on the practical level it becomes blurry. Both pre-Nazi (...) Germany and contemporary Holland offer ample evidence for the slippery slope that leads from voluntary to involuntary euthanasia. While advocates of assisted suicide regard the transition to the involuntary as an "abuse," that transition is, however, necessarily implied, and hence justified by assisted suicide. For the putative "right" to kill oneself implies that one has rights of disposal over one's life. But what is in principle disposable may be disposed of by others. Any argument for voluntary euthanasia implies the justification of involuntary eutharuisia. Therefore, physician-assisted suicide nullifies the right to life and with it the democratic charter. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 4, Page 381-387, May 2022.

People who wish to end their lives when they consider that they cannot endure further pain and suffering cannot legally obtain help to produce a peaceful death. The reality of practice seems to be that, covertly, physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia do take place. The value of personal autonomy in issues of consent has been clarified in the courts in that a competent adult person has the right to refuse or choose alternative treatments even if death will be (...) the outcome. This issue needs open discussion and regulation in order to protect those vulnerable people in our society. (shrink)

There is a growing trend among some physicians, psychiatrists, bioethicists, and other mental health professionals not to treat physician-assisted suicide (PAS) as suicide. The grounds for doing so are that PAS fundamentally differs from other suicides. Perhaps most notably, in 2017 the American Association of Suicidology argued that PAS is distinct from the behavior that their organization seeks to prevent. This paper compares and contrasts suicide and PAS in order to see how much overlap there is. (...) Contrary to the emerging view that emphasizes their differences, I argue that there is significant overlap such that we ought not to separate PAS into its own category, making it diverge from how we think about and address suicide more generally. I start by examining several prominent theories of suicide and argue that PAS fits squarely within them. I then examine several apparent differences between PAS and other kinds of suicide and argue that these differences are merely apparent or they do not justify treating PAS as a fundamentally different kind of thing from suicide. (shrink)

Brussen, Kerri Anne This paper is a brief history of suicide, euthanasia, and physician assisted suicide in the United States of America which aims to provide an understanding of the continued and persistent effort in the USA to legalise physician assisted suicide. Oregon and Washington State Dying with Dignity Laws are reviewed as examples of legalised physician assisted suicide.

The legal treatment of physician-assisted suicide is in flux. Reform has been impelled by several forces, including the recent success of novel constitutional arguments in the Ninth and Second Circuit Courts of Appeals. I will review and discuss Compassion in Dying v. State of Washington and Quill v. Vacco, addressing the constitutional arguments, and then briefly considering the attractions and difficulties of these new constitutional theories.Before 1990, state criminal laws dealing with assisted suicide had reached a (...) remarkably stable consensus: suicide was not illegal, but assisting suicide was a criminal action with no distinction typically made between physicians and others who assisted. The details of the relevant criminal law varied from state to state. Some states had criminal statutes specifically addressing assisted suicide, while others treated the practice under more general homicide statutes. But in no state was it clearly legal for a physician to prescribe a lethal medication at the request of a dying patient. While remarkable legal developments took place during the 1970s and 1980s regarding other aspects of the rights of dying patients, there was relative quiescence regarding the law of PAS. (shrink)

The legal treatment of physician-assisted suicide is in flux. Reform has been impelled by several forces, including the recent success of novel constitutional arguments in the Ninth and Second Circuit Courts of Appeals. I will review and discuss Compassion in Dying v. State of Washington and Quill v. Vacco, addressing the constitutional arguments, and then briefly considering the attractions and difficulties of these new constitutional theories.Before 1990, state criminal laws dealing with assisted suicide had reached a (...) remarkably stable consensus: suicide was not illegal, but assisting suicide was a criminal action with no distinction typically made between physicians and others who assisted. The details of the relevant criminal law varied from state to state. Some states had criminal statutes specifically addressing assisted suicide, while others treated the practice under more general homicide statutes. But in no state was it clearly legal for a physician to prescribe a lethal medication at the request of a dying patient. While remarkable legal developments took place during the 1970s and 1980s regarding other aspects of the rights of dying patients, there was relative quiescence regarding the law of PAS. (shrink)