A critique of three objections to physician-assisted suicide

Ethics

Volumn 109, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 519-547

  Brock, Dan W ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DRUG; HYPNOTIC SEDATIVE AGENT;

ANALYTICAL APPROACH; ARTICLE; ASSISTED SUICIDE; BEHAVIOR; CIVIL RIGHTS; DEATH AND EUTHANASIA; ECONOMICS; ETHICS; FREEDOM; GOVERNMENT; GOVERNMENT REGULATION; HUMAN; JURISPRUDENCE; MOTIVATION; PALLIATIVE THERAPY; PASSIVE EUTHANASIA; PERSONAL AUTONOMY; PHYSICIAN; POLICY; RIGHT TO DIE; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIAL CONTROL; TERMINAL CARE; TERMINALLY ILL PATIENT; TREATMENT REFUSAL; TREATMENT WITHDRAWAL; UNITED STATES;

ANALYTICAL APPROACH; DEATH AND EUTHANASIA;

CIVIL RIGHTS; ECONOMICS; ETHICS; EUTHANASIA, PASSIVE; FREEDOM; GOVERNMENT REGULATION; HUMANS; HYPNOTICS AND SEDATIVES; INTENTION; JURISPRUDENCE; MOTIVATION; PALLIATIVE CARE; PERSONAL AUTONOMY; PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATIONS; PHYSICIANS; PUBLIC POLICY; RIGHT TO DIE; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIAL CONTROL, FORMAL; STATE GOVERNMENT; SUICIDE, ASSISTED; SUPREME COURT DECISIONS; TERMINAL CARE; TERMINALLY ILL; TREATMENT REFUSAL; UNITED STATES; WEDGE ARGUMENT; WITHHOLDING TREATMENT;

EID: 0033106471     PISSN: 00141704     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/233920     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 F.3d 790 (9th Cir. 1996) (en banc); Quill v. Vacco, 80 F.3d 716 (2d Cir. 1996); 117 S.Ct. 2258 (1997) and 117 S.Ct. 2293 (1997).
2. Oregon Death with Dignity Act, Or. Rev. Stat. 127.800-827 (1995).
3. Roev. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
4. In re Quinlan, 355 A.2d 647 (N.J.), cert. denied 429 U.S. 922 (1976).
5. Allen E. Buchanan and Dan W. Brock, Deciding for Others: The Ethics of Surrogate Decision Making (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
6. Cruzan v. Missouri, 497 U.S. 251 (1990).
7. Robert Burt, "The Supreme Court Speaks: Not Assisted Suicide but a Constitutional Right to Palliative Care," New England Journal of Medicine 337 (1997): 1234-36.
8. Timothy E. Quill, Bernard Lo, and Dan W. Brock, "Palliative Options of Last Resort: A Comparison of Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking, Terminal Sedation, Physician-Assisted Suicide, and Voluntary Euthanasia, "Journal of the American Medical Association 278 (1997): 2099-2104.
9. I will not, of course, pursue all the grounds on which commentators have sought to morally distinguish forgoing life support from PAS. Of those grounds that I shall set aside here, the most prominent is that PAS is killing, whereas forgoing life support is allowing to die. I have argued elsewhere both that the killing/allowing to die distinction does not map onto the PAS/forgoing-life-support distinction and that it is problematic whether killing is, in itself, morally worse than allowing to die. See my papers, "Voluntary Active Euthanasia," Hastings Center Report 22 (1992): 10-22, "Taking Human Life," Ethics 95 (1985): 851-65, "Death and Dying," in Medical Ethics, ed R. Veatch, 2d ed. (Boston: Jones & Bartlett, 1996). The literature and debate on this issue is voluminous.
10. I will not, of course, pursue all the grounds on which commentators have sought to morally distinguish forgoing life support from PAS. Of those grounds that I shall set aside here, the most prominent is that PAS is killing, whereas forgoing life support is allowing to die. I have argued elsewhere both that the killing/allowing to die distinction does not map onto the PAS/forgoing-life-support distinction and that it is problematic whether killing is, in itself, morally worse than allowing to die. See my papers, "Voluntary Active Euthanasia," Hastings Center Report 22 (1992): 10-22, "Taking Human Life," Ethics 95 (1985): 851-65, "Death and Dying," in Medical Ethics, ed R. Veatch, 2d ed. (Boston: Jones & Bartlett, 1996). The literature and debate on this issue is voluminous.
11. I will not, of course, pursue all the grounds on which commentators have sought to morally distinguish forgoing life support from PAS. Of those grounds that I shall set aside here, the most prominent is that PAS is killing, whereas forgoing life support is allowing to die. I have argued elsewhere both that the killing/allowing to die distinction does not map onto the PAS/forgoing-life-support distinction and that it is problematic whether killing is, in itself, morally worse than allowing to die. See my papers, "Voluntary Active Euthanasia," Hastings Center Report 22 (1992): 10-22, "Taking Human Life," Ethics 95 (1985): 851-65, "Death and Dying," in Medical Ethics, ed R. Veatch, 2d ed. (Boston: Jones & Bartlett, 1996). The literature and debate on this issue is voluminous.
12. President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Deciding to Forgo Life-Sustaining Treatment: A Report on the Ethical, Medical, and Legal Issues in Treatment Decisions (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1983).
13. Dan W. Brock, "Informed Consent," in Health Care Ethics, ed. D. VanDeVeer and T. Regan (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987).
14. F. M. Kamm, "A Right to Choose Death? A Moral Argument for the Permissibility of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide," Boston Review 22 (1997): 20-23.
15. Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 506 U.S. 833 (1992).
16. Buchanan and Brock, chap. 2.
17. Jerry Dworkin has suggested to me the example of a person who would die from exposure to the sun's rays and is protected by an electromagnetic shield that has no effect on the person. Withdrawing the protective shield or treatment, not imposing it, would result in a harmful physical intrusion on the patient of the sun's rays.
18. Timothy E. Quill, Rebecca Dresser, and Dan W. Brock, "The Rule of Double Effect: A Critique of Its Role in End of Life Decisior Making," New England Journal of Medicine 337 (1997): 1768-71.
19. Charles Fried, Right and Wrong (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978); Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
20. Charles Fried, Right and Wrong (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978); Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
21. Joseph M. Boyle, "Toward Understanding the Principle of Double Effect," Ethics 90 (1980): 527-38; Philippa Foot, "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect," in her Virtues and Vices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 19-32; Warren S. Quinn, "Actions, Intentions, and Consequences: The Doctrine of Double Effect," Philosophy and Public Affairs 18 (1989): 334-51; also see the issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, vol. 16, no. 5 (October 1991), devoted entirely to papers on double effect.
22. Joseph M. Boyle, "Toward Understanding the Principle of Double Effect," Ethics 90 (1980): 527-38; Philippa Foot, "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect," in her Virtues and Vices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 19-32; Warren S. Quinn, "Actions, Intentions, and Consequences: The Doctrine of Double Effect," Philosophy and Public Affairs 18 (1989): 334-51; also see the issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, vol. 16, no. 5 (October 1991), devoted entirely to papers on double effect.
23. Joseph M. Boyle, "Toward Understanding the Principle of Double Effect," Ethics 90 (1980): 527-38; Philippa Foot, "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect," in her Virtues and Vices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 19-32; Warren S. Quinn, "Actions, Intentions, and Consequences: The Doctrine of Double Effect," Philosophy and Public Affairs 18 (1989): 334-51; also see the issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, vol. 16, no. 5 (October 1991), devoted entirely to papers on double effect.
24. Joseph M. Boyle, "Toward Understanding the Principle of Double Effect," Ethics 90 (1980): 527-38; Philippa Foot, "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect," in her Virtues and Vices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 19-32; Warren S. Quinn, "Actions, Intentions, and Consequences: The Doctrine of Double Effect," Philosophy and Public Affairs 18 (1989): 334-51; also see the issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, vol. 16, no. 5 (October 1991), devoted entirely to papers on double effect.
25. W. C. Wilson, N. G. Smedira, C. Fink, et al., "Ordering and Administration of Sedatives and Analgesics during the Withholding and Withdrawal of Life Support from Critically Ill Patients," Journal of the American Medical Association 267 (1992): 949-53.
26. Anthony L. Bach, Jeffrey I. Wallace, Helene E. Starks, and Robert A. Pearlman, "Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Washington State," Journal of the American Medical Association 275 (1996): 919-25.
27. Timothy E. Quill, "The Ambiguity of Clinical Intentions," New England Journal of Medicine 329 (1993): 1039-40.
28. Paul F. VanDerMaas, Gerrit VanDerWal, Ilinka Haverkate, et al., "Euthanasia, Physician-Assisted Suicide, and Other Medical Practices Involving the End of Life in the Netherlands, 1990-95," New England Journal of Medicine 335 (1996): 1699-1705.
29. Richard F. Uhlmann, Robert A. Pearlman, and K. C. Cain, "Physicians' and Spouses' Predictions of Elderly Patients' Treatment Preferences, "Journal of Gerontology 43 (1988): 115-21; Tom Tomlinson et al., "An Empirical Study of Proxy Consent for Elderly Persons," Gerontologist 30 (1990): 54-61;
30. Richard F. Uhlmann, Robert A. Pearlman, and K. C. Cain, "Physicians' and Spouses' Predictions of Elderly Patients' Treatment Preferences, "Journal of Gerontology 43 (1988): 115-21; Tom Tomlinson et al., "An Empirical Study of Proxy Consent for Elderly Persons," Gerontologist 30 (1990): 54-61;
31. Robert A. Pearlman, Richard F. Uhlmann, and Nancy S. Jecker, "Spousal Understanding of Patient Quality of Life: Implications for Surrogate Decisions," Journal of Clinical Ethics 3 (1992): 114-21.
32. Charles H. Baron, Clyde Bergstrasser, Dan W. Brock, et al., "A Model State Statute to Authorize and Regulate Physician-Assisted Suicide," Harvard Journal of Legislation 331 (1996): 1-34.
33. Daniel Callahan and Margot White, "The Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide: Creating a Regulatory Potemkin Village," University of Richmond Law Review 30 (1996): 1-83.
34. VanDerMaas et al.
35. The SUPPORT Principal Investigators for the SUPPORT Project, "A Controlled Trial to Improve Care for Seriously Ill Hospitalized Patients: The Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatment," Journal of the American Medical Association 274 (1995): 1591-98.
36. Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Margaret Battin, "What Are the Potential Cost Savings from Legalizing Physician-Assisted Suicide?" New England Journal of Medicine 339 (1998): 167-72.
37. Brock, "Voluntary Active Euthanasia," and "Death and Dying."
38. Brock, "Voluntary Active Euthanasia," and "Death and Dying."