Citation

Prado CG. Ethics Med. Public Health 2016; 2(4): 535-539.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jemep.2016.10.010

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Recent legislation decriminalizing assisted suicide is welcome, but it suffers from a serious flaw. As formulated and presently interpreted, the legislation depersonifies some individuals. It does so by discriminating against them in denying them assistance in suicide while providing it for others. This depersonification occurs when consideration of some persons' need and request for assistance in suicide is assessed exclusively in terms of the condition of their bodies while their self-assessments, wishes, fears, and decisions are effectively ignored. Furthermore, as the legislation requires, consideration of requests for assistance in suicide focuses on particular terminal illnesses from which appellants suffer, discounting other reasons appellants have for wanting to die. In particular, anticipated and incipient afflictions are not allowed to figure in the assessments. Better formulation of decriminalizing legislation and especially more flexible interpretation of stated conditions is called for. Interpretation of the legislation must recognize the personal complexities and threats of terminal afflictions, both present and developing, as well as the straightforward physical consequences of present ones. In pursuing this matter, I concentrate on legislation very recently passed in Canada. However, the problem I identify and discuss, and the main point I make about it, are both readily generalizable to apply to other nations that either have already decriminalized assistance in suicide or are in the process of planning legislation to do so. As will emerge, it is not my objective to have the new Canadian legislation repealed or even significantly altered. Nor is it my intention to try to offer a tidy solution to the problem I identify in legislation pertaining to assistance in suicide. Rather, my objective is, first, to review the particular problem of how the legislation and its present interpretation depersonifies individuals through discrimination, focusing on one particular condition. Second, I then attempt to clarify just how the legislation as presently interpreted most seriously fails. Third, I suggest how judicious reinterpretation of the condition at issue may come about and thereby resolve the problem that it presently poses.

Language: en