The Politics of Physician Assisted Suicide

The Politics of Physician Assisted Suicide PDF

Author: Nina Clark

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-02-25

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1317777077

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First published in 1997. Nina Clark offers a pithy and valuable record of the political battles so far over voluntary, medically-hastened death. The purpose of the study is to examine the different ways in which the American political system has responded to the issue of patient autonomy; to explore its viability as an object of direct democracy; and to study the political activity and attitudes of individuals in relation to physician assisted suicide, particularly the elderly.

Physician-Assisted Death

Physician-Assisted Death PDF

Author: James M. Humber

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 1994-02-04

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 1592594484

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Physician-Assisted Death is the eleventh volume of Biomedical Ethics Reviews. We, the editors, are pleased with the response to the series over the years and, as a result, are happy to continue into a second decade with the same general purpose and zeal. As in the past, contributors to projected volumes have been asked to summarize the nature of the literature, the prevailing attitudes and arguments, and then to advance the discussion in some way by staking out and arguing forcefully for some basic position on the topic targeted for discussion. For the present volume on Physician-Assisted Death, we felt it wise to enlist the services of a guest editor, Dr. Gregg A. Kasting, a practicing physician with extensive clinical knowledge of the various problems and issues encountered in discussing physician assisted death. Dr. Kasting is also our student and just completing a graduate degree in philosophy with a specialty in biomedical ethics here at Georgia State University. Apart from a keen interest in the topic, Dr. Kasting has published good work in the area and has, in our opinion, done an excellent job in taking on the lion's share of editing this well-balanced and probing set of essays. We hope you will agree that this volume significantly advances the level of discussion on physician-assisted euthanasia. Incidentally, we wish to note that the essays in this volume were all finished and committed to press by January 1993.

Physician-assisted Suicide

Physician-assisted Suicide PDF

Author: Susan M. Behuniak

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 9780742517257

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Whether competent, terminally ill patients have a right to die with the assistance of their physicians or whether state and national governments have legitimate interests in forbidding the exercise of this right are the central questions around which this book revolves. In either case, essential constitutional issues as well as ethical and medical reflections enter the debate. This book, blending original sources and expert commentary, prepares its readers to enter the discussion by providing an accessible and concise introduction to the law and politics of physician-assisted suicide. Its timely appearance also sets the stage for understanding future state referenda, court decisions, legislation, and executive orders expected in 2002 and beyond. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Freedom to Die

Freedom to Die PDF

Author: Derek Humphrey

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2000-04-17

Total Pages: 692

ISBN-13: 1429929669

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The strength of the right-to-die movement was underscored as early as 1991, when Derek Humphry published Final Exit, the movement's call to arms that inspired literally hundreds of thousands of Americans who wished to understand the concepts of assisted suicide and the right to die with dignity. Now Humphry has joined forces with attorney Mary Clement to write Freedom to Die, which places this civil rights story within the framework of American social history. More than a chronology of the movement, this book explores the inner motivations of an entire society. Reaching back to the years just after World War II, Freedom to Die explores the roots of the movement and answers the question: Why now, at the end of the twentieth century, has the right-to-die movement become part of the mainstream debate? In a reasoned voice, which stands out dramatically amid the vituperative clamoring of the religious right, the authors examine the potential dangers of assisted suicide - suggesting ways to avert the negative consequences of legalization - even as they argue why it should be legalized.

Physician-assisted Death

Physician-assisted Death PDF

Author: L. W. Sumner

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0190490187

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The issue of physician-assisted death is now firmly on the American public agenda. Already legal in five states, it is the subject of intense public opinion battles across the country. Driven by an increasingly aging population, and a baby boom generation just starting to enter its senior years, the issue is not going to go away anytime soon. In Physician-Assisted Death, L.W. Sumner equips readers with everything they need to know to take a reasoned and informed position in this important debate. The book provides needed context for the debate by situating physician-assisted death within the wider framework of end-of-life care and explaining why the movement to legalize it now enjoys such strong public support. It also reviews that movement's successes to date, beginning in Oregon in 1994 and now extending to eleven jurisdictions across three continents. Like abortion, physician-assisted death is ethically controversial and the subject of passionately held opinions. The central chapters of the book review the main arguments utilized by both sides of the controversy: on the one hand, appeals to patient autonomy and the relief of suffering, on the other the claim that taking active steps to hasten death inevitably violates the sanctity of life. The book then explores both the case in favor of legalization and the case against, focusing in the latter instance on the risk of abuse and the possibility of slippery slopes. In this context the experience of jurisdictions that have already taken the step of legalization is carefully reviewed to see what lessons might be extracted from it. It then identifies some further issues that lie beyond the boundaries of the current debate but will have to be faced sometime down the road: euthanasia for patients who are permanently unconscious or have become seriously demented and for severely compromised newborns. The book concludes by considering the various possible routes to legalization, both political and judicial. Readers will then be prepared to decide for themselves just where they stand when they confront the issue both in their own jurisdiction and in their own lives.

Death with Dignity

Death with Dignity PDF

Author: Robert Orfali

Publisher: Hillcrest Publishing Group

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1936780186

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In this book the author makes a case for legalized physician-assisted dying. Using the latest data from Oregon and the Netherlands, he puts a new slant on perennial debate topics such as "slippery slopes," "the integrity of medicine," and "sanctity of life." This book provides an in-depth look at how we die in America today. It examines the shortcomings of our end-of-life system. You will learn about terminal torture in hospital ICUs and about the alternatives: hospice and palliative care. The author scrutinizes the good, the bad, and the ugly. He provides a critique of the practice of palliative sedation. The book makes a strong case that assisted dying complements hospice. By providing both, Oregon now has the best palliative-care system in America. This book, above all, may help you or someone you care about navigate this strange landscape we call "end of life." It can be an informed guide to "a good death" in the age of hospice and high-tech medical intervention.

Physician-Assisted Death

Physician-Assisted Death PDF

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2018-09-29

Total Pages: 179

ISBN-13: 030947695X

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The question of whether and under what circumstances terminally ill patients should be able to access life-ending medications with the aid of a physician is receiving increasing attention as a matter of public opinion and of public policy. Ethicists, clinicians, patients, and their families debate whether physician-assisted death ought to be a legal option for patients. While public opinion is divided and public policy debates include moral, ethical, and policy considerations, a demand for physician-assisted death persists among some patients, and the inconsistent legal terrain leaves a number of questions and challenges for health care providers to navigate when presented with patients considering or requesting physician-assisted death. To discuss what is known and not known empirically about the practice of physician-assisted death, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a 2-day workshop in Washington, DC, on February 12â€"13, 2018. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

The Chronic Silence of Political Parties in End of Life Policymaking in the United States

The Chronic Silence of Political Parties in End of Life Policymaking in the United States PDF

Author: Bianca Easterly

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 1498556094

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In recent decades, the level of moral acceptability of choice at the end of life has reached record highs. Legislative responsiveness to public opinion, however, has resulted in far fewer and much slower adoption patterns. For example, if a growing number of Americans support aid in dying legislation, why are so few states adopting them? While extensive research that explores matters of death and dying from the medical, legal, and religious perspectives exists, scholars have yet to consider the role of politics in explaining end of life policy adoption patterns. The Chronic Silence ofPolitical Parties in End of Life Policymaking in the United States retraces the right to die movement’s legislative history from its beginnings to the adoption and diffusion of its most recent innovations—the Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Paradigm and death with dignity—to identify the various forces that hinder its progress.

A Good Death

A Good Death PDF

Author: Lenora H. Lee

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13:

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Despite their continued attempts, the advocates have not repeated their "near win." Challenged by the death of their leader, the lack of financial resources and a declining membership, the sustainability and viability of the advocates are in question. This dissertation concludes by proposing a strategy that may further their attempts to win.

Liberalism's Troubled Search for Equality

Liberalism's Troubled Search for Equality PDF

Author: Robert Patrick Jones

Publisher: Robert P. Jones

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780268032678

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Debate surrounding the 1994 Oregon Death with Dignity Act, the first law to legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in America, revealed some surprising contradictions. Most prominently, egalitarian liberal philosophers Ronald Dworkin and John Rawls backed a constitutional right to PAS in direct opposition to many groups of disadvantaged citizens they theoretically supported. These groups argued that legalized PAS in the absence of universal access to health care would potentially coerce the disadvantaged to end their lives prematurely because of inadequate financial resources. In Liberalism's Troubled Search for Equality, Robert P. Jones asks why these concerns were dismissed by liberal philosophers and argues that this contradiction exposes a blind spot within liberal political theory.