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Is "aid in dying" suicide?

Philip Reed1

  • 1Canisius College, Buffalo, NY, USA. reedp@canisius.edu.

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
|April 8, 2019
PubMed
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Physician-assisted suicide involves terminally ill patients ending their lives with a doctor

Area of Science:

  • Medical Ethics
  • Philosophy of Medicine

Background:

  • Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is a practice where terminally ill patients self-administer a prescribed drug to end their lives.
  • A growing movement questions whether PAS should be classified as suicide.
  • This debate has significant ethical and legal implications.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To critically examine and refute the argument for abandoning the term 'suicide' in the context of physician-assisted suicide.
  • To establish that the label 'suicide' is conceptually and philosophically appropriate for PAS.
  • To analyze the linguistic strategies used by advocates of PAS.

Main Methods:

  • Conceptual analysis of the term 'suicide'.
  • Philosophical examination of intent in end-of-life decisions.
Keywords:
CoercionIntentionPhysician-assisted suicideSuicide

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analysis of arguments presented by proponents of PAS.

    • Main Results:

    • The study finds no valid conceptual or philosophical grounds to exclude physician-assisted suicide from the definition of suicide.
    • Intention to die is a crucial element of suicide, which is typically present in terminally ill patients undergoing PAS.
    • Attempts to reframe PAS without using the term 'suicide' are undermined by the legal arguments made by its advocates.

    Conclusions:

    • The term 'suicide' accurately describes the act of physician-assisted suicide.
    • Abandoning the suicide label for PAS is conceptually flawed and philosophically unsupported.
    • The intentional nature of the act aligns with the definition of suicide, regardless of medical assistance.