Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy: An Arguement Against Legislation 2nd Edition

Author: John Keown
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107618336

Previous Edition ISBN: 0521009332
Published In: October 2018
Format: Paperback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Description
Contents

Details

Whether the law should permit voluntary euthanasia and/or physician-assisted suicide is one of the most controversial questions facing modern societies. Many people, moved by 'hard cases' reported by the mass media, support legalisation.

This unique book explains a powerful but misunderstood argument against legalisation: that, even if they were morally justified in 'hard cases', voluntary euthanasia and/or physician-assisted suicide resist effective legal control. For reasons both practical and logical, legalisation would initiate a slide down a 'slippery slope' to ending the lives of patients who did not make a free, informed request; who were not suffering unbearably, and for whom there were alternatives.

The book substantiates the argument that effective legal control is not feasible by drawing on the experience of three jurisdictions which have relaxed their laws: the Netherlands, Belgium and Oregon.

Part I. Definitions:

1. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide

2. Intended v. foreseen life-shortening

Part II. The Ethical Debate: Human Life, Autonomy, Legal Hypocrisy, and the 'Slippery Slope'

3. The value of human life

4. The value of autonomy

5. Legal hypocrisy?

6. The slippery slope arguments

Part III. The Dutch Experience:

7. The guidelines

8. The first survey: the incidence of 'euthanasia'

9. Breach of the guidelines