Citation

Shaw D, Elger B. Death Stud. 2016; 40(8): 479-485.

Affiliation

a Institute for Biomedical Ethics , University of Basel , Basel , Switzerland.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/07481187.2016.1177621

PMID

27092460

Abstract

For a wider project on ageing in prison, we interviewed thirty-five older prisoners and twenty-four stakeholders (prison staff, prison healthcare professionals and policy makers) about healthcare for prisoners. In all, six prisoners and three stakeholders spontaneously expressed their attitudes concerning assisted suicide. Some prisoners seek assisted suicide for medical reasons and others because they regard spending the rest of their lives in prison as undignified. However, stakeholders identified several ethical and practical challenges in providing assisted suicide to prisoners. This paper presents these perspectives on assisted suicide in prison and provides an ethical analysis of the issues raised.

Language: en