Citation

Bishop JP. Stud. Christ. Ethics 2016; 29(3): 261-268.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0953946816642969

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Those supporting laws permitting assisted suicide (AS) seem to enact a thin morality, one that permits people who desire AS to get it in the terminal stages of an illness, and that provide safeguards both for those who desire AS and do not desire it. This article explores the way in which all AS legislation subtly frames the question of AS such that AS becomes the clearest option; ensconcing AS in law also gives a moral legitimacy to suicide. Thus, the morality of laws permitting AS are not morally thin. I describe how AS laws create a different social imaginary for dying in Western cultures, one that competes with the traditional Christian understanding. Legalized AS is inevitable in Western liberal democracies, and I claim that the Church, which transformed the ancient Greco-Roman culture, will once again have to create alternative structures, creating a new Ars moriendi, in order to challenge the modern statecraft for killing. © The Author(s) 2016.

Language: en

Keywords

Assisted suicide; Physician assisted suicide; Ars moriendi; Medico-legal apparatus; Social imaginary for dying; Statecraft for killing