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Physician-assisted suicide-a clean bill of health?

Robert Preston¹

¹Living and Dying Well.

British Medical Bulletin

|September 16, 2017

Abstract

Background:

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) laws have been enacted in five US States and, along with physician-administered euthanasia, in Canada and the Netherlands.

Sources Of Data:

Annual reports of the Oregon Health Authority and published research papers.

Areas Of Agreement:

Not all recipients of lethal drugs use them to end their lives. Improvements in palliative care provision.

Areas Of Controversy:

Rising numbers of deaths from PAS. Emergence of 'doctor shopping' and multiple-prescribing. Absence of qualitative scrutiny of assessment process. No re-assessment or oversight when prescribed drugs are ingested. Recent pressures to extend Oregon's PAS law.

Growing Points:

Reasons given for seeking PAS indicate this is a societal rather than a clinical issue and raise the question whether adjudicating on requests for legalized PAS is an appropriate role for doctors.

Areas For Timely Research:

Research into quality of decision-making in requests for PAS and into potential role of doctors as expert witnesses rather than judges in requests for PAS.

Keywords:

assessment capacity clinical pressure prognosis suicide

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