Citation

Krishna L, Shirlynn H. Asian Bioeth. Rev. 2015; 7(1): 62-80.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1353/asb.2015.0003

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The practice of palliative sedation (PS) at the end of life has been examined and debated increasingly in ethical and clinical literature. The "argument of preferable alternative" (APA), first brought up by Justice O'Connor in her judgement in Washington v Glucksberg in 1997, has been examined and used by Raus et al. in the argument for the application of PS in place of physician-assisted suicide (PAS). By examining the concepts and terminology in PS from both individual and collective views within different guidelines and the assumptions of APA, we suggest that PS is too variable in practice to harness the APA. © 2015 The Authors.

Language: en

Keywords

Physician-assisted suicide; Palliative sedation; Terminal sedation; Terminal care; End-of-life decision making; Refractory symptoms