Physician beneficence: the last stop for patients requesting assisted suicide

Last rights? Confronting physician-assisted suicide in law and society: legal liturgies on physician-assisted suicide.

and the Director of the Center for Law and Aging at Stetson. ** Dr. D. Dixon Sutherland is a Professor of Religious Studies at Stetson University and the Director of the Institute for Christian Ethics. 1. The term of art for this has been dubbed by the popular press as physicianassisted suicide (PAS). However, describing the requested act as a suicide has added confusion to the debate over PAS,...

Characteristics of patients requesting and receiving physician-assisted death.

BACKGROUND Surveys have shown that physicians in the United States report both receiving and honoring requests for physician assistance with a hastened death. The characteristics of patients requesting and receiving physician aid in dying are important to the development of public policy. OBJECTIVE To determine patient characteristics associated with acts of physician-assisted suicide. DESI...

Physician-assisted suicide.

Medical professional codes have long prohibited physician involvement in assisting a patient's suicide. However, despite ethical and legal prohibitions, calls for the liberalization of this ban have grown in recent years. The medical profession should articulate its views on the arguments for and against changes in public policy and decide whether changes are prudent. In addressing such a conte...

Physician-assisted suicide.

On election day, November 14, 1994, Oregon voters elected a physician, Dr. John Kitzhaber, as their governor and, simultaneously, granted physicians the legal authority to help people end their own lives. By passing Ballot Measure 16,1 the voters decided that a physician may, at a patient's request, prescribe a medication "for the purpose of ending his or her life in a humane and dignified mann...

The case for physician-assisted suicide?