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Aging, Death, & Dying: Euthanasia

A research topic guide covering aspects related to aging, death, and dying, including elder care, euthanasia and suicide.

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Perspectives

The Patient's Wish to Die

Wish to die statements are becoming a frequent phenomenon in terminally ill patients. Those confronted by these statments need to understand the complexity of such wishes, so they can respond competently and compassionately to the requests. If misunderstood, the statements can be taken at face-value and the practitioner may not recognise that a patient is in fact experiencing ambivalent feelings at the end of life, or they may misinterpret the expressed wish to die as a sign of clinical depression. Public debate about the morality and ethics of various end-of-life care options has exploded in recent years. However, it has never been sensitive to the finer aspects of clinical reality or the experiences of patients. The Patient's Wish to Die: Research, Ethics, and Palliative Care brings together that reality and the patient's voice, combining them with different research approaches. It presents the best available knowledge and research methodologies about patients' wishes at the end-of-life, together with a series of ethical views and a discussion about the clinical implications for palliative care. The book presents material in an open and unbiased manner whilst remaining sensitive to the spiritual and existential dimensions of dying, and to the different cultural views that provide meaning to the individual. Written by the best specialists and ethics scholars from around the world, including palliative care practitioners and end-of-life scholars from countries where assisted dying practices are legalized and from those where it isn't, The The Patient's Wish to Die: Research, Ethics, and Palliative Care will prove essential reading for all those working or studying in the field of palliative care.

Facing Death: Frontline

How far would you go to sustain the life of someone you love or your own? When the moment comes, and you're confronted with the prospect of 'pulling the plug', do you know how you'll respond? Unfounded rumors of federal 'death panels' grabbed headlines last summer, but the real decisions of how we die, the questions that most of us prefer to put off, are being made quietly behind closed doors, increasingly on the floors of America's intensive care units.

Death and Medical Power

"This book is a well-referenced review of the history of the societal debate, attempts at regulation, and the practice itself. In addition, it discusses important and insightful distinctions (active-passive; omission-commission; outcomes-intentions). The unique basis for their conclusion makes an outstanding contribution to the literature." Robert D. Orr, MD, CM, Professor of Bioethics,at Loma Linda University, California, USA. How have Dutch debates on end-of-life care developed so differently from most other countries, finally resulting in the legalization of euthanasia? What are the relevant legal, medical and ethical dimensions of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide? What lessons can be learned from the Dutch experience with euthanasia? In all modern countries a good death and relief of suffering are important issues of public debate. The bioethical debate in the Netherlands is unique since it has been focusing on the issue of euthanasia for more than thirty years. This book describes the debate, explains its origins, and analyses its development, resulting in the legislation of euthanasia. It also presents data on the medical practice of euthanasia with examples of cases. Death and Medical Power details the evolution as well as the complexities of the legal responses to physician involvement in euthanasia. The authors analyze the ethical debate concerning euthanasia, discussing the pros and cons of medical termination of human life. The book concludes with a section on the lessons to be learned from the Dutch experience. This unique study will be of relevance to all clinicians and other professionals involved in end-of-life care, to health policy makers and educators, as well as anybody else interested in the ethics of euthanasia.

The Right to Die

We all die, but should we have the ability to choose when? Death is part of life, but not everyone agrees on the details. What if you have painful, terminal illness? Is it okay to seek suicide if a doctor assists? Do you have a right to end your own life? Is doing so a violation of God's or a greater power's plan? This anthology engages this dilemma from diverse perspectives, grounding abstract and moral discussions in real-life events such as Oregon's right-to-die law. Students will analyze the various facets of this controversial subject with decisive interpretations from religion, medicine, law, and philosophy.

Against Physician Assisted Suicide

The majority of doctors and nurses involved in specialist palliative care reject the legalisation of physician assisted suicide (PAS). This book explores the reasons why the healthcare professionals who have the most experience of caring for dying patients should object to a change in the law. Debate about euthanasia and PAS often arises in response to a well publicised tragic case of unrelieved suffering. Such heart rending stories do not reflect the fact that the majority of people dying have a dignified death. There is a marked disparity between medical intuitions and the philosophers' arguments about euthanasia and PAS. It seems that part of the moral constitution of a doctor is a commitment not to intend the death of a patient and to protect them from harm. The perspective of those who are privileged to care for thousands of dying patients and their families should inform the debate about PAS.This book will enable those who are not working within palliative care to gain an insight into the scope of this speciality and to understand why legalisation of PAS should be resisted to maintain and improve care of dying patients.

Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die

Margaret Pabst Battin has established a reputation as one of the top philosophers working in bioethics today. This work is a sequel to Battin's 1994 volume The Least Worst Death. The last ten years have seen fast-moving developments in end-of-life issues, from the legalization ofphysician-assisted suicide in Oregon and the Netherlands to furor over proposed restrictions of scheduled drugs used for causing death, and the development of "NuTech" methods of assistance in dying. Battin's new collection covers a remarkably wide range of end-of-life topics, including suicideprevention, AIDS, suicide bombing, serpent-handling and other religious practices that pose a risk of death, genetic prognostication, suicide in old age, global justice and the "duty to die," and suicide, physician-assisted suicide, and euthanasia, in both American and international contexts.As with the earlier volume, these new essays are theoretically adroit but draw richly from historical sources, fictional techniques, and ample factual material.

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