Euthanasia Debate Research Articles

Euthanasia: the institutional response.

For health institutions, euthanasia represents an increasingly complex but increasingly inescapable debate, in which the expectations of health professionals have moved away from the declaratory answer in search of greater sophistication and clarity. The House of Lords' Committee on Medical Ethics drew attention to the unavoidable complexity of future medical decisions at the end of life, the inexorably changing doctor-patient relationship and the demographic shift resulting in greater numbers surviving longer to face chronic, degenerative conditions. The committee proved a watershed in many respects, not least in the moral debate it triggered in the public and among health professionals. Arguably it aired questions which still have not been conclusively answered. Its questioning mirrored the trend observable among the institutions' membership for rigour and detail to justify the positions adopted. It represents one facet of the pressure on health institutions, whose previous mode of dealing with the euthanasia debate was by declaration and some would say by pontification. Their reticence to probe deeper was undoubtedly based partly on the conviction that detailed debate about euthanasia was an anathema within professional groups committed to the traditional life-preserving goal of medicine. Also influential has been the assumption that it would be otiose for professional bodies to issue guidance on matters unambiguously covered by law. Arguably, both of these views should have been challenged if not dispelled by the effort involved in contributing evidence to the House of Lords' Committee. That exercise exposed the need for guidance and the ambiguities at law but it remains to be seen how the debate will be taken forward, or not, by health institutions.

The Euthanasia Debate: Attitudes, Practices and Psychiatric Considerations

To review the current status of the euthanasia debate by examining public and physician attitudes towards euthanasia, the practice of euthanasia in the Netherlands, recent developments in Canada and other countries, psychosocial considerations related to the desire for death in terminally ill patients, and the roles that psychiatrists may be asked to play in the event of legislative reform involving discriminalization. A literature review was conducted focusing on recent surveys regarding physician and patient attitudes towards euthanasia, the role of psychiatrists and empirical data pertaining to the mental state of patients who request physician-hastened death. Psychiatric morbidity among patients requesting physician-hastened death is considerable. As a special case of suicide, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are of particular relevance to mental health professionals.

The great euthanasia debate

“Beethoven. It's got to be Beethoven.” “Beethoven?” “More gooseberry fool, anyone? Simon?” “Um. Delicious. But no thanks. … Yes, one of the late quartets. ‘It must be.’ Just the thing. Marvellous stuff. You know it, Barbara.” “Of course I know it. But the point is mummy loathed Beethoven. She loathed all classical music. Except maybe the Warsaw concerto….So why don't we…” “The Warsaw concerto?” “It's what she'd want, Simon….She used to whistle it when she was weeding….” “The Warsaw bloody concerto?” “This is about her, Simon. Not about …

Medicine and the community —the euthanasia debate

Medical Journal of AustraliaVolume 163, Issue 4 p. 219-220 Letter Medicine and the community —the euthanasia debate Martin B Van Der Weyden, Martin B Van Der Weyden Editor The Medical Journal of AustraliaSearch for more papers by this author Martin B Van Der Weyden, Martin B Van Der Weyden Editor The Medical Journal of AustraliaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 August 1995 https://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1995.tb124538.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume163, Issue4August 1995Pages 219-220 RelatedInformation

Medicine and the community —the euthanasia debate

Medicine and the community —the euthanasia debate

Medicine and the community —the euthanasia debate

Medicine and the community —the euthanasia debate

Medicine and the community — the euthanasia debate

Medical Journal of AustraliaVolume 162, Issue 11 p. 566-566 Editorial Medicine and the community — the euthanasia debate Martin B Van Der Weyden, Martin B Van Der Weyden Editor The Medical Journal of AustraliaSearch for more papers by this author Martin B Van Der Weyden, Martin B Van Der Weyden Editor The Medical Journal of AustraliaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 June 1995 https://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1995.tb138542.xCitations: 4AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume162, Issue11June 1995Pages 566-566 RelatedInformation

Framing the physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia debate: the role of deontology, consequentialism, and clinical pragmatism.

Framing the physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia debate: the role of deontology, consequentialism, and clinical pragmatism.

The Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Debate: An Annotated Bibliography of Representative Articles

The Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Debate: An Annotated Bibliography of Representative Articles

The Euthanasia Debate in Germany ‐ What's the Fuss?

ABSTRACT Both opponents and proponents of Singer's right to speak about euthanasia have concentrated on the tenability of his claims. They have ignored the question of what legitimate grounds there are for suppressing academic discussion, and have failed to take into account the discussion of freedom of speech in recent legal theory. To do this is the aim of my paper. Section I claims that Singer's position is immoral. Section 2 turns to the question of whether it is protected by freedom of speech, irrespective of its merits. I reject two lines of defence for Singer's opponents, that they had no opportunity to present their case, and the Kantian idea of the primacy of practical reason. Section 3 turns to a defence from legal theory. It argues that Singer's views do not pose the kind of threat to other legal and moral values which would license a suspension of his freedom of expression. I conclude that it is illegitimate to silence Singer, since he does not deny the right to live of his disabled opponents, but legitimate to protest against him, since he denies that some of their lives are worth living, in disregard of their own preferences.

The Euthanasia Debate and Empirical Evidence: Separating Burdens to Others from One’s Own Quality of Life

The Euthanasia Debate and Empirical Evidence: Separating Burdens to Others from One’s Own Quality of Life

Nursing and the euthanasia debate.

Nursing and the euthanasia debate.

Forcing the issue of physician-assisted suicide. Impact of the Kevorkian case on the euthanasia debate.

(1993). Forcing the issue of physician‐assisted suicide. Journal of Legal Medicine: Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 93-124.

When Self-Determination Runs Amok

The euthanasia debate is not just another moral debate, one in a long list of arguments in our pluralistic society. It is profoundly emblematic of three important turning points in Western thought. The first is that of the legitimate conditions under which one person can kill another. The acceptance of voluntary active euthanasia would morally sanction what can only be called "consenting adult killing." By that term I mean the killing of one person by another in the name of their mutual right to be killer if they freely agree to play those roles. This turn flies in the face of a long-standing effort to limit the circumstances under which one person can take the life of another, from efforts to control the free flow of guns and arms, to abolish capital punishment, and to more tightly control warfare. Euthanasia would add a whole new category of killing to a society that already has too many excuses to indulge itself in that way. The second turning point lies in the meaning and limits of self-determination. The acceptance of euthanasia would sanction a view of autonomy holding that individuals may, in the name of their own private, idiosyncratic view of the good life, call upon others, including such institutions as medicine, to help them pursue that life, even at the risk of harm to the common good. This works against the idea that the meaning and scope of our own right to lead our own lives must be conditioned by, and be compatible with, the good of the community which is more than an aggregate of self-directing individuals. The third turning point is to be found in the claim being made upon medicine: it should be prepared to make its skills available to individuals to help them achieve their private vision of the good life. This puts medicine in the business of promoting the individualistic pursuit of general human happiness and well-being. It would overturn the traditional belief that medicine should limit its domain to promoting and preserving human health, redirecting it instead to the relief of that suffering which stems from life itself, not merely from a sick body. I believe that, at each of these three turning points, proponents of euthanasia push us in the wrong direction. Arguments in favor of euthanasia fall into four general categories, which I will take up in turn: (1) the moral claim of individual self-determination and well-being; (2) the moral irrelevance of the difference between killing and allowing to die; (3) the supposed paucity of evidence to show likely harmful consequences of legalized euthanasia; and (4) the compatibility of euthanasia and medical practice. Self-Determination Central to most arguments for euthanasia is the principle of self-determination. People are presumed to have an interest in deciding for themselves, according to their own beliefs about what makes life good, how they will conduct their lives. That is an important value, but the question in the euthanasia context is, What does it mean and how far should it extend? If it were a question of suicide, where a person takes her own life without assistance from another, that principle might be pertinent, at least for debate. But euthanasia is not that limited a matter. The self-determination in that case can only be effected by the moral and physical assistance of another. Euthanasia is thus no longer a matter only of self-determination, but of a mutual, social decision between two people, the one to be killed and the other to do the killing. How are we to make the moral move from my right of self-determination to some doctor's right to kill me - from my right to his right? Where does the doctor's moral warrant to kill come from? Ought doctors to be able to kill anyone they want as long as permission is given by competent persons? Is our right to life just like a piece of property, to be given away or alienated if the price (happiness, relief of suffering) is right? And then to be destroyed with our permission once alienated? …

Active euthanasia and forgoing life-sustaining treatment: Can we hold the line?

Public sentiment in favor of permitting voluntary active euthanasia creates a dilemma for a bioethics rooted in a libertarian notion of autonomy. At stake in the active euthanasia debate is actually a question of power—the individual's assertion of sovereignty over the timing and circumstances of his or her own death. Also at stake is society's unwillingness to impose a conception of the good—and a good dying—on individuals whose personal values and conceptions of the good may differ. In order both to reject voluntary active euthanasia and to affirm the patient's right to forgo life-sustaining treatment, some societal conception of the good must be developed and agreed upon to counter unbridled claims of individual self-sovereignty over dying. Pragmatic arguments alone, such as the need to maintain confidence in the doctor-patient relationship, will not be sufficient.

EUTHANASIA AND END-OF-LIFE DECISIONS IN THE NETHERLANDS.

The recent euthanasia debate has focused on the Netherlands, where euthanasia (termination of life at the patient's request) is thought to be fairly common. This study, commissioned by the Dutch government, provides more precise information about end-of-life decisions in that country. …

'It's over, Debbie' and the euthanasia debate

'It's over, Debbie' and the euthanasia debate

'It's Over, Debbie' and the Euthanasia Debate

The apparent act of mercy killing described in It's Over, Debbie in the A PIECE OF MY MIND column in the Jan 8,1988, issue of JAMA 1 stimulated substantial reaction from the medical profession, the public, the media, and legal authorities. At press time, we have received more than 150 letters. Eighteen examples are published in this issue, 2 as are two representative commentaries. 3,4 Most of the early letters were from physicians and tallied about 4:1 against the action the physician described and 3:1 againstThe JOURNALfor publishing the essay. Reactions from the public and media were delayed but were extraordinary in volume and duration. Purpose and Process of Publication We published It's Over, Debbie to provoke responsible debate within the medical profession and by the public about euthanasia in the United States in 1988. 5 We believe that JAMA is the right place for issues in American

Euthanasia, Liberty, and ReligionLife and Death with Liberty and Justice: A Contribution to the Euthanasia Debate. Germain Grisez , Joseph M. Boyle, Jr.

Examines issues and arguments in the euthanasia debate, looking at such topics as moral responsibilities toward human life, justice, and the definition of death.

Book Review: Life and Death with Liberty and Justice: A Contribution to the Euthanasia Debate

Book Review: Life and Death with Liberty and Justice: A Contribution to the Euthanasia Debate