Compromising on assisted suicide: Is 'turning a blind eye' ethical?

Clinical Ethics

Volumn 7, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 17-23

  Mullock, Alexandra ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84862526051     PISSN: 14777509     EISSN: 1758101X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1258/ce.2012.012m04     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. R (On the Application of Purdy) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2009] UKHL 45, [2009] WLR 403, [2010] 1 A.C. 345 (HL)
2. Director of Public Prosecutions. Policy for Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide, February 2010.
3. http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/assisted_suicide_policy.html (last checked 3 April 2012)
4. Although, ardent right-to-die campaigner, Dr Michael Irwin, has helped a number of people to travel to Dignitas for an assisted suicide (see for example 'British woman takes her own life at Dignitas because she did not want to die of old age', The Telegraph, 3 April 2011) and yet he has not been prosecuted
5. Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.
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19. the Policy, no. (1) of the factors tending against prosecution
20. This factor was removed in response to concerns that if seriously ill or disabled victims are identified as inviting less concern as to the wrongness of assisting in suicide, such people are afforded less protection and thus, their lives are viewed as less valuable than other members of society
21. the House of Lords - Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill - first report, (paras 215-225), which reported on a number of polls (e.g. MORI, British Social Attitudes [BSA]) that demonstrated that the general public were overwhelmingly in favour of euthanasia for people suffering unbearably and/or suffering from a terminal illness. For example, a BSA poll showed 'an increasing majority in favour of doctors being allowed to end the life of a patient suffering from a painful incurable disease', rising from 75% in 1984 to 82% in 1994
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23. The Death with Dignity Act 1994
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26. 'Dignity in Dying' is the main pressure group involved in the campaign for the legalization of assisted dying. Their definition of 'assisted dying' including only assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
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38. Data are available. See http://oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/docs/year13.pdf (last checked 3 April 2012)
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