Assisted suicide and capital punishment: a mirror image?

Area of Science:

• Medico-legal jurisprudence
• UK law
• Comparative legal analysis

Background:

• Capital punishment, or the death penalty, was abolished in the UK.
• Assisted dying and euthanasia (AD/E) legislation is currently proposed.
• Historical legal precedents inform contemporary ethical debates.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the UK's legal stance on capital punishment.
• To contrast this with proposed AD/E legislation.
• To analyze the jurisprudential arguments in both contexts.

Main Methods:

• Historical medico-legal jurisprudential research.
• Analysis of case law leading to the cessation of capital punishment.
• Comparative analysis of arguments in current AD/E proposals.

Main Results:

• Societal choices regarding AD/E mirror those faced during the abolition of capital punishment.
• Past capital punishment cases demonstrate that judicial processes can result in wrongful deaths.
• AD/E involves complex factors like diagnostic uncertainty, potential errors, and relational autonomy, with campaigners acknowledging inevitable mistakes.

Conclusions:

• The high standard set for abolishing capital punishment (preventing incorrect deaths) should be considered for AD/E.
• The ethical balance between the right to choose and the risk of irreversible errors in AD/E requires careful consideration.
• The acceptable proportion of wrongful deaths in the context of AD/E remains a critical ethical question.