Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Daniel Callahan
- Introduction
- 1 Euthanasia and the value of life
- 2 A philosophical case against euthanasia
- 3 The philosophical case against the philosophical case against euthanasia
- 4 The fragile case for euthanasia: a reply to John Harris
- 5 Final thoughts on final acts
- 6 Misunderstanding the case against euthanasia: response to Harris's first reply
- 7 Euthanasia: back to the future
- 8 The case for legalising voluntary euthanasia
- 9 Extracts from the Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics
- 10 Walton, Davies, Boyd and the legalization of euthanasia
- 11 Where there is hope, there is life: a view from the hospice
- 12 Letting vegetative patients die
- 13 A case for sometimes tube-feeding patients in persistent vegetative state
- 14 Dilemmas at life's end: a comparative legal perspective
- 15 Physician-assisted suicide: the last bridge to active voluntary euthanasia
- 16 Euthanasia in the Netherlands: sliding down the slippery slope?
- 17 Advance directives: a legal and ethical analysis
- 18 Theological aspects of euthanasia
- Index
15 - Physician-assisted suicide: the last bridge to active voluntary euthanasia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Daniel Callahan
- Introduction
- 1 Euthanasia and the value of life
- 2 A philosophical case against euthanasia
- 3 The philosophical case against the philosophical case against euthanasia
- 4 The fragile case for euthanasia: a reply to John Harris
- 5 Final thoughts on final acts
- 6 Misunderstanding the case against euthanasia: response to Harris's first reply
- 7 Euthanasia: back to the future
- 8 The case for legalising voluntary euthanasia
- 9 Extracts from the Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics
- 10 Walton, Davies, Boyd and the legalization of euthanasia
- 11 Where there is hope, there is life: a view from the hospice
- 12 Letting vegetative patients die
- 13 A case for sometimes tube-feeding patients in persistent vegetative state
- 14 Dilemmas at life's end: a comparative legal perspective
- 15 Physician-assisted suicide: the last bridge to active voluntary euthanasia
- 16 Euthanasia in the Netherlands: sliding down the slippery slope?
- 17 Advance directives: a legal and ethical analysis
- 18 Theological aspects of euthanasia
- Index
Summary
Some 30 years ago an eminent constitutional law scholar, Charles L. Black, Jr, spoke of ‘toiling uphill against that heaviest of all argumental weights — the weight of a slogan. ’I am reminded of that observation when I confront the slogan the ‘right to die. ’
THE ‘RIGHT TO DIE’
Few rallying cries or slogans are more appealing and seductive than the ‘right to die. ’ But few are more fuzzy, more misleading, or more misunderstood. The phrase has been used loosely by many people to embrace at least four different rights:
the right to reject or to terminate unwanted medical procedures, including life–saving treatment;
the right to commit suicide or, as some call it, the right to ‘rational’ suicide;
the right to assisted suicide, that is, the right to obtain another's help in committing suicide; and
the right to active voluntary euthanasia, that is, the right to authorize another to kill you intentionally and directly.
Each of these four ‘rights’ should be kept separate and distinct. Unfortunately, many times they are not.
First of all, neither the 1976 Quintan case nor the 1990 Cruzan case (the only case involving death, dying and the ‘right to privacy’ ever decided by the US Supreme Court) establishes an absolute or general right to die — a right to end one's life in any manner one sees fit.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Euthanasia ExaminedEthical, Clinical and Legal Perspectives, pp. 225 - 260Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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