Terminally ill patients in nine states and Washington, DC can use telemedicine to get a doctor’s approval to hasten their end of life. But family members must mix the lethal drug cocktail themselves.
California now allows terminally ill people to end their lives. In the 2,800-year-old Jain tradition, individuals can choose to fast unto death, when it makes no sense to prolong suffering.
We all die eventually, of course, but these days it’s very hard for doctors and loved ones to let patients and relatives die without doing “whatever it takes”.
Euthanasia advocates often assert a distinction between dying with dignity (good) and suicide (bad), drawing on the community’s twin commitment to both permitting euthanasia in some circumstances, and…
When it comes to legislating voluntary euthanasia in Australia, success is rare and short lived. The Tasmanian Voluntary Assisted Dying bill is the latest such piece of euthanasia legislation to be defeated…
Hard cases, it has been said, make bad law. They also prompt us to ask deeper questions about wider causes and longer term ethical consequences - and this is particularly pressing when it comes to assisted…
Lord Falconer’s assisted dying bill would allow registered doctors to take steps to help mentally competent adult patients to end their own lives, but only in certain circumstances. One of these circumstances…
Ben White, Queensland University of Technology; Lindy Willmott, Queensland University of Technology, dan Robert Douglas, Australian National University
A report we recently prepared with independent think tank Australia21 calls for state governments to institute laws allowing and regulating voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide – in defined and limited…
On the eve of a federal budget looking for savings, I would like to report a medical intervention that reduces suffering, can prolong life and dramatically reduces health-care costs. The intervention itself…