Physician-Assisted Suicide and Free Will

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Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is a topic, which proponents often support by the affirmation of patient free will or as the exercise of patient autonomy. The purpose of this paper is to examine this argument further from an inter-disciplinary approach, regarding PAS from medical, ethical and legal standpoints and to examine the concept of free will from the philosophical discipline. Are these concepts compatible in a meaningful context and can a sound argument be constructed to support PAS on the basis of patient free will? Derek Humphry, in Lawful Exit, defines PAS as a physician "providing the means by which a person can take his or her own life." The means, to which he refers, is a toxic substance and the directions for administration, which will produce death. Humphry argues for legal reform in order to make such acts lawful, calling them: "...the ultimate civil liberty, the freedom to select one's own manner of dying without interference from others, but with help if we choose." My academic research on Minerva 2000 produced 0 hits on the topic: US Practice of Physician-Assisted Suicide. Certainly, the three types of presently legal and justifiable grounds for assisting other people in taking their lives which Humphry enumerates, all exclude freedom, free will or civil liberty. Why haven't the US Legislature, and the US medical community chosen to legislate and practice PAS on behalf of patient rights to exercise free will and autonomy? In The Nature of Medicine, Gerald Dworkin refers to an article written by Leon Kass in 1989, entitled: "Neither for Love nor Money: Why Doctors Must Not Kill". Dworkin identifies Kass's article as the benchmark public... ... middle of paper ... ...r Report 19 (January/February 1989): Dworkin, Gerald. " The Nature of Medicine." Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide: For and Against. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Hendlin, Herbert. "Selling Death and Dignity." TheHastings Center Report 25 (May/June 1995). Humphry, Derek. Lawful Exit. 1st ed. Junction City: Norris LP (1993) Jonsen, Albert R., Ph.D., Siegler, Mark, M.D., Winslade, William, Ph.D., J.D. A Practical Guide to Ethical Decisions in Clinical Medicine. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Norman Kempsmith. New York: The Humanities P, 1950. Kass, Leon. "Neither for Love nor Money: Why Doctors Must Not Kill." Public Interest. No. 94. (Winter 1989) Levine, Carol. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Bioethical Issues. 7th ed. Guilford: McGraw-Hill, 1997.

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