Abstract
The real difficulty with the existing debate is that there is little recognition that, ultimately, the assisted suicide debate is philosophical and moral rather than religious, political, legal or sociological. In fact, there is a fundamental difference between the sides in that proponents tend to put forward political reasons for allowing assisted suicide whereas opponents stick to religious reasons for their opposition. Perhaps this is the reason why the discussion does not seem to move; both sides argue from utterly different cultural frameworks.
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Notes
Margaret Somerville, Death Talk: The Case against Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), p. 107.
Kevin Yuill, ‘In the Wake of Teni Schiavo, the Real Slippery Slope’, Journal of Cancer Pain and Symptom Palliation, vol. 1, no. 2 (2005), pp. 43–46.
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Theo A. Boer, ‘Recurring Themes in the Debate about Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide’, Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 35, no. 3 (September 2007), pp. 529–555.
Arthur J. Dyck, Life’s Worth: The Case against Assisted Suicide (Cambridge, MA: Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, 2002).
Neil M. Gorsuch, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
Leo Alexander, ‘Medical Science under Dictatorship’, New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 241, no. 2 (1949), pp. 39–47
Thomas Q. Martin, ‘Euthanasia and Modem. Morality: Their Moral Implications’, The Jurist Vol. X (January-October, 1950), pp. 437–464
See Wesley J. Smith, Forced Exi t: The Slippery Slope from A ssisted Suicide to Legalized Murder (New York: Times Books, 1997)
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Glanville Williams, The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law (London: Faber and Faber, 1958), p. 281.
See, for instance, Diane Coleman, ‘Assisted Suicide Laws Create Discriminatory Double Standard for Who Gets Suicide Prevention and Who Gets Suicide Assistance: Not Dead Yet Responds to Autonomy, Inc.’, Disability and Health Journal, vol. 3 (2010), pp. 39–50.
Leon R. Kass, ‘Neither for Love nor Money: Why Doctors Must Not Kill’, Public Merest, 94 (Winter 1989), p. 25.
See, for example, Nadine Spiegel, ‘Euthanasia and Physician-assisted Suicide: Effect on the Doctor-Patient Relationship’, PennBioethics Journal, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 2005), pp. 1–3.
See Kathleen M. Foley and Herbert Hendin (eds), The Case against Assisted Suicide: The Case for the Right to End-of-Life Care (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002)
Peter Singer, Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 196.
Margaret Pabst Battin, Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 18.
Ronald Dworkin, ‘Introduction’ to ‘Assisted Suicide: The Philosophers’ Brief, New York Review of Books vol. XLIV, No. 5, 27 March 1997, pp. 41–45
Paul Badham, Is There a Christian Case for Assisted Dying? (London: SPCK Publications, 2009).
Timothy E. Quill and Jane Greenlaw, ‘Physician-assisted Death’, in Mary Crowley (ed.), From Birth to Death and Bench to Clinic: The Hastings Center Bioethics Briefing Book for Journalists, Policymakers, and Campaigns (Garrison: The Hastings Center, 2008), pp. 137–142
Sheila McLean, Assisted Dying: Reflections on the Need for Law Reform (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 34
Martha Nussbaum, ‘Compassion: The Basic Social Emotion’, Social Philosophy & Policy, vol. 13, no. 1 (1996), pp. 27–58.
Timothy Quill, ‘Criteria for Physician-assisted Suicide’, in Michael M. Uhlmann (ed.), Last Rights? Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Debated (Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1998), pp. 326–335
In Rachels’ scenario, both Smith and Jones stand to inherit a large amount of money from their respective six-year old cousins, should their cousins die. Smith drowns his young cousin while Jones, intending on the same act, chances upon his young cousin slipping on the bath and concussing himself. Jones then does not interfere with him drowning. Rachels used the fact that both acts are equally morally reprehensible to undermine the distinction between killing and letting die. James Rachels, ‘Active and Passive Euthanasia’, The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 292 (1975), pp. 78–80.
Mary Wamock and Elisabeth Macdonald, Easeful Death: Is there a Case for Assisted Dying? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
John Stuart Mill illustrates this principle with the example of a bridge: ‘if either a public officer or any one else saw a person attempting to cross a bridge which had been ascertained to be unsafe, and there were no time to warn him of his danger, they might seize him and turn him back without any real infringement of his liberty; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, and he does not desire to fall into the river. Nevertheless, when there is not a certainty, but only a danger of mischief, no one but the person himself can judge of the sufficiency of the motive which may prompt him to incur the risk: in this case, therefore (unless he is a child, or delirious, or in some state of excitement or absorption incompatible with the full use of the reflecting faculty) he ought, I conceive, to be only warned of the danger; not forcibly prevented from exposing himself to it.’ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, C. L. Ten and Stephen M. Cahn (eds) (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), p. 138.
See Timothy M. Quill and Margaret P. Battin, Physician-assisted Dying: The Case for Palliative Care and Patient Choice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).
Sheila McLean, Assisted Dying: Reflections on the Need for Law Reform (London: Routledge, 2007)
Iain Brassington, ‘Five Words for Assisted Dying’, Law and Philosophy, 27 (2008), pp. 415–444
T. M. Scanlon, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Ronald Dworkin and Judith Jarvis Thompson, ‘Assisted Suicide: The Philosophers’ Brief, New York Review of Books, 44 (27 March 1997), pp. 41–47.
John Hams, ‘Euthanasia and the Value of Life’, in John Keown (ed.), Euthanasia Examined: Ethical, Clinical and Legal Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 6–22
David Benatar, ‘Assisted Suicide, Voluntary Euthanasia, and the Right to Life’, in Jon Yorke (ed.), The Right to Life and the Value of Life (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2010), pp. 291–310
See Robert I. Simon, MD, James L. Levenson, MD, and Daniel W. Shuman, JD, ‘On Sound and Unsound Mind: The Role of Suicide in Tort and Insurance Litigation’, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, vol. 33, no. 2 (2005), pp. 176–182.
Cited in Alfred Alvarez, The Savage God: A Study of Suicide (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), p. 62.
Margaret P. Battin and Ryan Spellecy, ‘What Kind of Freedom? Szasz’s Misleading Perception of Physician-assisted Suicide’, in Jeffrey A. Schaler (ed.), Szasz Under Fire: The Psychiatric Abolitionist Faces His Critics (Chicago: Open Court, 2004), pp. 277–290.
John P. Safranek, ‘Autonomy and Assisted Suicide: The Execution of Freedom’, Hastings Center Report, vol. 28, no. 4 (1998), pp. 32–36.
Iain Brassington, ‘Five Words for Assisted Dying,’ Law and Philosophy (2008) 27, pp. 415–444
J. L. Lucas, Principles of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 101.
John Hardwig, ‘Is There a Duty to Die?’, Hastings Center Report, vol. 27, no. 2 (1997), pp 34–42
Daniel Callahan, Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1995).
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Yuill, K. (2013). An Analysis of the Key Arguments on Both Sides. In: Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286307_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286307_3
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