Physician-Assisted Suicide

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. The Hippocratic Oath, written in Greece sometime during the fifth to fourth centuries B.C.E., represented an effort by a small group of physicians to build public trust and to distance themselves from others who would sometimes assist seriously ill persons to commit suicide by supplying poison. Once again physician-assisted suicide (PAS) has become a major ethical issue in medicine. As the exploits of Jack Kevorkian, M.D., are played out in the media and in the courts, physician-assisted suicide has become the focus of intense public and professional debate.The essays in this book are intended to shed light and perspective on the issue of PAS. The authors were selected not only because of their experience and scholarship, but also because they provide readers with differing points of view on a complex subject. Writing from professional backgrounds in history, medicine, philosophy, religion, and law, the authors provide us with essays characterized by careful analysis, experienced insight, solid scholarship, and strong, sometimes passionate arguments. Part I contains two historical interpretations that set the stage for the rest of the book. The essays in Part II address the question of whether PAS is morally justifiable I individual cases.Part III focuses specifically on physicians who have to decide whether they are morally obligated to take on the role of enabler when asked by their patients, or whether they are morally or legally obligated to turn down such requests. Part IV focuses on persons with disabilities and women who may be inclined to request assistance in committing suicide because of serious problems connected with their disabilities or gender. Part V addresses PAS as an issue of law and public policy.