Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate

In its two recent cases about the hotly debated issue of physician assisted suicide, the United States Supreme Court concluded its majority opinion with the declaration that, "Americans are engaged in an earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality, and practicality of physician-assisted suicide. . . . Our holding permits this debate to continue, as it should in a democratic society." A consequence of the Supreme Court's decision is to return discussion to the states, to deal with this heated issue either legislatively or by citizen referendum.Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debateis a cross-disciplinary collection of essays that advances such reflection and discussion during the politically turbulent period to come. The question of physician assisted suicide is not a simple matter. By offering views from a range of disciplines, including bioethics, law, medicine, and religion this book draws attention to the variety of questions to be addressed, for example: * Shouldassistance in suicide be confined to the terminally ill--or should any rational person be able to ask for a doctor's help in ending life? *Is physician-assisted suicide about avoiding suffering, or is it about control of the decision to end one's life? * Would doctors' killing patients betray their public trust, or would providing aid-in-dying allow patients greater security in knowing their doctors would help them as they wish at the end? * Is controlling one's own dying analogous to controlling one's fertility, a matter of particular importance to feminists? * Are people with disabilities especially susceptible to coercion--or is portraying them as weak and vulnerable another form of stereotyping? * What about Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish views of physician-assisted suicide? *What about rights and duties, both of physicians and patients?