Assisted dying
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Recent papers in Assisted dying
A review-essay discussing Ann Neumann's book, "The Good Death" (Beacon 2016).
Eligibility criteria in voluntary assisted dying legislation determine access to assistance to die. This article undertakes the practical exercise of analysing whether each of the following nine medical conditions can provide an... more
CARDAN E&V, Death and Medicine, 2016 This book consists of 21 chapters dealing with the entire series of important peri-mortem issues; it is neither a handbook nor a simple lecture, but a compendium of general medical knowledge on... more
The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act (Vic) will commence operation on 19 June 2019. Doctors were highly visible in the debate which informed the recent law reform process, and Victorian legislators relied considerably on the diverse views of... more
Opponents of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act predicted legalization of assisted dying would result in serious harmful consequences, such as a decline in the quality of palliative care, disparate impact on vulnerable populations, and... more
This issue of assisted dying is once again in the public consciousness given several recent high-profile cases on both sides of the Atlantic challenging the legal prohibition on assisted dying. Central to any debate on this topic are the... more
Euthanasia for psychiatric conditions is currently legal in Belgium and the Netherlands. It is also highly controversial, as illustrated by some recent, high-profile cases. In this paper, I show how a better understanding of the... more
As of February 2016, physician-assisted dying will become legal in Canada. This paper utilizes a review of news articles and scholarly, legal, and grey literature to summarize international and domestic assisted dying legislation.... more
Univ. of Oxford Postgraduate WIP paper (Friday, Nov. 6th 2015)
Loss of livelihood as virtual death? Institutional blackmail, institutional extortion or institutional racketeering? Just suffering theory? Hypocritical condemnation of assisted dying? Just consent theory versus Just dissent theory?
That Kant’s moral thought is invoked by both advocates and opponents of a right to assisted dying attests to both the allure and and the elusiveness of Kant’s moral thought. In particular, the theses that individuals have a right to a... more
In this paper I test the methodological potential of a set of six questions, called the “What's the Problem Represented to be?,” or WPR approach, borrowed from the field of discursive policy analysis (Bacchi, 2012a) for doing critical... more
The various jurisdictions worldwide that now legally permit assisted suicide (or voluntary euthanasia) vary concerning the medical conditions needed to be legally eligible for assisted suicide. Some jurisdictions require that an... more
The contemporary juridico-political and bioethical debate over physician assisted dying has emerged as one of the most divisive of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Commonly strained through Western conceptions of individual rights... more
It is an honour to have been asked to launch this outstanding, timely and "essential" book, and I pay tribute to John's equally outstanding summary of the core issues of the book in his opening remarks. Book launches are normally happy... more
This essay considers sources of opposition to allowing access to medical assistance in dying for individuals with mental illness. It originated with an observation by members of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics that in... more
Background: Voluntary assisted dying was legalized in Victoria, Australia in June 2019, and was the first jurisdiction internationally to legislatively mandate training for doctors conducting eligibility assessments of patients. Mandatory... more
The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) will come into force in June 2019, becoming the first law in Australia in 20 years to permit voluntary assisted dying (VAD). This paper considers how other Australian states and territories are... more
Objectives: The aim of this paper is to provide insight into what it means to live with the intention to end life at a self-chosen moment from an insider perspective. Setting: Participants who lived independent or semidependent... more
In October of 2018, Norman Hardy became the first individual to be cryopreserved after successful recourse to California's then recently passed End of Life Options Act. This was a right not afforded to Thomas Donaldson, who in 1993 was... more
In the debate on euthanasia or assisted dying, many different arguments have been advanced either for or against legal reform in the academic literature, and much contemporary academic research seeks to engage with these arguments.... more
Death is a reality of life. Despite this inevitability, death today remains unwelcome and has been sequestered into the enclaves of medical practice as a means of quelling the rising tide of fear it provokes. Medical practice currently... more
Two matters that have a significant presence in the contemporary Dutch assisted dying debate, are the nature of the suffering required for an assisted death to be lawful, and the issue of who can lawfully assist. This article explores... more
Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are a contentious issue globally. Usually, the argument focuses on assisted dying for people with a terminal physical illness. However, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium have legalised... more
How did I learn to understand that there can never ever be any acceptable alternative to immortality and living indefinitely forever young? Is there any better way to learn and permanently remember the understanding that any possibly... more
Historically, an authoritarian attitude, via the law and social norms, has produced widespread suffering. This suffering far outweighs the risks of abuse of a thoroughly considered, modern liberal attitude and body of law concerning... more
This Editorial criticizes the notion that 'conscientious objection' provides an ethically justifiable reason for health care professionals not to provide professional services that they would be obliged to provide, were it not for their... more
Purpose: (1) To provide an in-depth analysis of Parliament’s constitutional responsibilities under the Canadian Charter and the Supreme Court decision in Carter; (2) To present a critical analysis of the proposed policy under which... more
“Can I choose to die?” As the number of requests for euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide continues to rise, human rights law faces a new conflict: the right to die vs. the right to life… The right to die or, in other words, ‘the... more
The main aim of this article is to outline the discussion on euthanasia that affects the basic aspects of human life – the foundation of human dignity, sense of pain and suffering, the conception of the afterlife, quality and value of... more
Opponents of medically assisted dying have long appealed to 'slippery slope' arguments. One such slippery slope concerns palliative care: that the introduction of medically assisted dying will lead to a diminution in the quality or... more
In the debate on euthanasia or assisted dying, many different arguments have been advanced either for or against legal reform in the academic literature, and much contemporary academic research seeks to engage with these arguments.... more
Over two decades of Dutch experience with voluntary assisted dying can inform deliberations about the nature of a regulatory framework in Australian jurisdictions. This article considers three issues from this perspective: 1. Whether... more
A warning about assisted dying arising from a clinical experience of being asked by a patient to end his life.
Although assisted dying has been most commonly presented within a medicalised framework, the notion of de-medicalisation is employed in this paper to suggest that there are emerging models of assisted dying in which some medical aspects... more
Scholars engaged in debates about the use of public reason often view religious arguments as being out of bounds. Yet the real-world impact of religious discourse remains under-explored. This study contributes to research in this area... more