In this study, we test Durkheim’s (1897) conceptualization of suicide as a pattern of suicidal behavior caused by sociological conditions and its effects on attitudes towards state sanctioned death through examining support for assisted suicide and the death penalty. Using secondary-data and quantitative analytical methods, we empirically examine personal attitudes towards assisted suicide for ...

Attitudes towards assisted death activities among medical students, the future health gatekeepers, are scarce and controversial. The aims of this study were to explore attitudes on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide among final year medical students in Athens, to investigate potential differences in attitudes between male and female medical students and to review worldwide attitudes o...

Introduction Discussions about whether or not to legalize assisted suicide often fail to take into account the fact that unassisted suicide [1] is already legal.[2] Failure to consider this fact means that unless there is a significant difference between assisted suicide and unassisted suicide that justifies prohibiting the former while permitting the latter, one must either accept inconsistenc...

Suicide and assisted suicide are not criminal acts in Germany. However, attempting suicide may create a legal duty for physicians to try to save a patient's life. This study presents data on medical students' legal knowledge and ethical views regarding physician assisted suicide (PAS). The majority of 85 respondents held PAS to be illegal. More than a third of the students viewed PAS in certain...

The psychiatric literature on physician-assisted suicide is scant and almost universally opposed to legalization. This opposition stems from the traditional perspective of suicide as a symptom of mental illness and the tendency of psychiatrists to extend their view of suicide in the medically well to the terminally ill. This article examines the basis for and validity of this opposition and mak...

Suicide by helium inhalation inside a plastic bag has recently been publicized by right-to-die proponents in "how to" print and videotape materials. This article reports a suicide performed according to this new and highly lethal technique, which is also a potentially undetectable cause of death. Toxicology information could not determine helium inhalation, and drug screening did not reveal dat...

BACKGROUND Euthanasia and assisted suicide, and policies to address them are the subjects of contentious debate in many countries. However, the question of why people desire euthanasia or assisted suicide has not been coherently answered. We aimed to answer this question in a specific group of patients. METHODS We did a qualitative study of 32 people with HIV-1 or AIDS, who were enrolled in t...

In his article, Thomas Rissfeldt argues the compatibility of palliative care with euthanasia and assisted suicide. 1 By account, many working within field feel that physician-assisted suicide are incompatible care. Wrongly, according to author, since (1) aims euthanasia/assisted not different, (2) compatible fundamental role physician as healer, (3) do necessarily constitute patient abandonment...

BACKGROUND In 2002, an act regulating the ending of life by a physician at the request of a patient with unbearable suffering came into effect in the Netherlands. In 2005, we performed a follow-up study of euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and other end-of-life practices. METHODS We mailed questionnaires to physicians attending 6860 deaths that were identified from death certificates. T...

The argument that acceptance of assisted suicide is an outgrowth of respect for personal autonomy departs from the traditional American value that holds life more basic than freedom and serves freedom by discouraging rather than assisting self-destruction. The sociological argument that removal of the taboo against assisted suicide will lead to the destructive expansion of the right to kill th...