Proponents of the legalization of assisted suicide often appeal to our supposed right to "die with dignity" to defend their case. I examine and assess different notions of "dignity" that are operating in many arguments for the legalization of assisted suicide, and I find them all to be deficient. I then consider an alternative conception of dignity that is based on Aristotle's conception of the...

OBJECTIVES In November 2015, the German Federal Parliament voted on a new legal regulation regarding assisted suicide. It was decided to amend the German Criminal Code so that any "regular, repetitive offer" (even on a non-profit basis) of assistance in suicide would now be considered a punishable offense. On July 2, 2015, a date which happened to be accompanied by great media interest in that ...

background: in the majority of countries, active direct euthanasia is a forbidden way of the deprivation of the patients’ life, while its passive form is commonly accepted. this distinction between active and passive euthanasia has no justification, viewed through the prism of morality and ethics. therefore, we focused on attention on the moral and ethical implications of the aforementioned med...

Aircraft-assisted pilot suicide is a rare but serious phenomenon. The aim of this study was to evaluate changes in pilot aircraft-assisted suicide risks, i.e., a copycat effect, in the U.S. and Germany after the Germanwings 2015 incident in the French Alps. Aircraft-assisted pilot suicides were searched in the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident investigation database and ...

OBJECTIVE To study the perceptions on physician assisted suicide, among patients presenting to family physicians, at a teaching hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. METHOD The study was carried out at the Community Health Center of The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, between December 1999 and May 2000. The principal and co-investigators filled a pre-coded and pretested questionnaire consisti...

BACKGROUND In Switzerland, assisted suicide is legal but there is concern that vulnerable or disadvantaged groups are more likely to die in this way than other people. We examined socio-economic factors associated with assisted suicide. METHODS We linked the suicides assisted by right-to-die associations during 2003-08 to a census-based longitudinal study of the Swiss population. We used Cox ...

This article explores a disconcerting phenomenon. In recent years, in writing on the subject of assisted suicide, several bioethicists have made extraordinary historical claims. The history of Western moral theories that exhibit disapproval of all forms of suicide is well known. Nevertheless, the bioethicists have claimed that some of Europe's most prominent early modern moral philosophers neve...

In the recent case of Stransham-Ford v. the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, the North Gauteng High Court held that a terminally ill patient who was experiencing intractable suffering was entitled to commit suicide with the assistance of his doctor and that the doctor's conduct would not be unlawful. The court was careful to state that it was not making a general rule about doctor...

THE US SUPREME COURT will soon rule on whether Americans have a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. Lawyer Karen Capen says Canadian physicians should keep an eye on the ruling because Canada and the US have similar standards of medical practice and ethical principles. Any solution remains difficult because the gap between supporters and opponents of physician-assisted suicide i...

In Part I discusses whether there is a sustainable distinction between withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining measures and physician-assisted suicide. By segregating those who choose to end their lives into two groups, albeit with considerable overlap, the state can exert its general interest in preserving life and preventing suicide where it has the greatest interest and justification for ...