The Ethics Meetup – Physician-assisted suicide (voluntary euthanasia)

Hello Philosophy & Ethics Fans!

UPDATE: we have a topic for the Meetup, which is this Sunday, September 27 at 5 PM – 7 PM Pacific Time.

We're meeting on zoom this month; shortly before the meeting starts, I'll send a Zoom invitation with the link and some discussion notes.
If your plans to attend have changed, please update your RSVP.

The winner of the email vote and the topic for Sunday is:

PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE (VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA). Is it ethically acceptable for the terminally ill to take their own life (or to elicit help in doing so)? What are the arguments, pro and con? If it is acceptable, under what circumstances? And, would it be permissible to encourage assisted suicide?

Second, does it make a difference if the patient has a brain illness, such as dementia, instead of a disease we usually associate with assisted dying, such as cancer? For example, should Alzheimer’s sufferers be eligible for assisted suicide, if they make that choice prior to becoming mentally incapable of doing so? What about treatment-resistant, severe clinical depression?

These are not mere academic questions. Currently, 13 states in the U.S. and at least 10 countries including Canada have some form of medical aid in dying laws – and more countries are considering it. In the U.S., laws authorize assisted dying (self-administered), which is distinct from active euthanasia (where a physician directly administers the medication), which is illegal throughout the U.S. Some countries allow active euthanasia. In five countries, there is no terminal illness requirement, but the patient's suffering must be unbearable, non-alleviable, and medically documented. Do these distinctions make an ethical difference?

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READINGS for the topic – I have two short readings and a podcast for you this time. Inspire and clarify your thinking on the issues by reading and listening to these and writing down your ideas!

https://www.britannica.com/procon/MAID-medical-aid-in-dying-debate
MAID: Medical Aid in Dying from the Encyclopedia Britannica. Read the introduction and the next 3 sections, "Pros and Cons at a Glance", "Pro Arguments," and "Con Arguments," which totals to 6 pages long. There's no need to read the rest of the article. However, if you want to know about "Religious Perspectives on Euthanasia and Medical Aid in Dying," skip down to that section, which is another 6 pages of reading. Click on the printer icon at the top of the article to get an easier-to-read digital version of the article, free from adverts.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3185895/
A legal right to die: responding to slippery slope and abuse arguments. This 3-page editorial by philosopher D Benatar is in the medical journal Current Oncology.

https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/should-euthanasia-be-legal
Listen to the 22-minute *Philosophy Bites / Practical Ethics Bites *podcast, Should euthanasia be legal? In this episode, the show’s philosopher-host David Edmonds interviews physician Dominic Wilkinson, director of Medical Ethics at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. Stream it online at the link above or download the episode using this link Audio (15.09 MB).

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Don't forget, if you have some philosophical question or issue that you want to talk about at a future meeting, email it to me!

See you there,

Brian