Why gender matters to the euthanasia debate: On decisional capacity and the rejection of women's death requests

Hasting Center Report

Volumn 30, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 30-36

  Parks, Jennifer A ^a  

^a LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACTIVE EUTHANASIA; ARTICLE; ASSISTED SUICIDE; DEATH AND EUTHANASIA; EUTHANASIA; FEMALE; HUMAN; MENTAL STRESS; MORALITY; PERSONAL AUTONOMY; RIGHT TO DIE; SEX DIFFERENCE; VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA;

DEATH AND EUTHANASIA;

EUTHANASIA; EUTHANASIA, ACTIVE; EUTHANASIA, ACTIVE, VOLUNTARY; FEMALE; HUMANS; MORAL OBLIGATIONS; PERSONAL AUTONOMY; RIGHT TO DIE; SEX FACTORS; STRESS, PSYCHOLOGICAL; SUICIDE, ASSISTED;

EID: 0033629547     PISSN: 00930334     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3527993     Document Type: Article

References (18)

1. S. Wolf, "Gender, Feminism, and Death: Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia," in Feminism & Bioethics: Beyond Reproduction, ed. S. Wolf (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 282-317, at 284.
2. D. Brock, "Voluntary Active Euthanasia," Hasting Center Report 22, no.2 (1992): 11-21, at 11.
3. J. Gay-Williams, "The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia," reprinted in Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Medical Ethics, ed. Ronald Munson, 5th ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), pp. 168-71, at 170.
4. See ref. 2, Wolf, "Gender, Feminism, and Death," p. 298.
5. T. Quill, "Death and Dignity: A Case of Individualized Decision-Making," reprinted in Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, ed. J. D. Arras and B. Steinbock, (London: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1991), pp. 292-95.
6. Note, however, that feminists are concerned with both under-contextualizing and over-contextualizing women's lives. While ethicists should not ignore the situational aspects of women's lives, they also should not subordinate women's self-regarding choices to the requirements of maintaining social relationships.
7. B. L. Strickling, "Self-Abnegation," in Feminist Perspectives: Philosophical Essays on Method and Morals, ed. C. Overall, L. Code, and S. Mullet (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), pp. 190-201, at 194.
8. D. Callahan, "When Self-Determination Runs Amok," in Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, ed. J. Arras and B. Steinbock, 4th ed. (London: Mayfield Publishing Co, 1996): 295-309, at 311.
9. V. Hartouni, Cultural Conceptions: On Reproductive Technologies and the Remaking of Life (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 12-13.
10. K. Morgan, "Women and Moral Madness," in Feminist Perspectives: Philosophical Essays on Method and Morals, ed. C. Overall, L. Code, and S. Mullet (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), pp. 146-67, at 150.
11. See ref. 2, Wolf, "Gender, Feminism, and Death," p. 294.
12. M. Sadker and D. Sadker, "Sexism in the Schoolroom of the '80s," Psychology Today 19, no. 3 (1985): 54-57, at 55.
13. S. Callahan, "Abortion and the Sexual Agenda: A Case for Prolife Feminism," Commonweal, 25 April 1986: 9-17, at 15.
14. E. Nechas and D. Foley, Unequal Treatment: What You Don't Know About How Women are Mistreated by the Medical Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 66.
15. S. H. Miles and A. August, "Courts, Gender and the 'Right to Die'," Journal of Law, Medicine and Health Care 18 (1990): 85-95.
16. D.E. Meier et al., "A National Survey of Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the United States," NEJM 338 (1998): 1193-200.
17. This study also indicates that when patients received a prescription for a lethal dose of medication (that is, the means to implement physician-assisted suicide), 90 percent of lethal prescriptions were given to patients who were at home, and only 5 percent were given to patients in nursing homes. However, in cases of active euthanasia, 99 percent of patients were hospitalized at the time of lethal injection (p. 1197).
18. See ref. 2. Wolf, "Gender, Feminism, and Death," p. 308.