Citation

Elliot D. Christ. Bioeth. 2018; 24(1): 17-37.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Journal of Christian Bioethics, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/cb/cbx017

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The recent legalization of assisted dying in California, along with similar bills before other states, returned assisted suicide to the national spotlight. In Anglo-American dying bills, two criteria restrict eligibility for assisted suicide: (1) the uncoerced request to die (roughly, the "autonomy" criterion) and (2) severely deteriorated health of a certain kind (roughly, the "physical" criterion) from a six-month terminal illness (US jurisdictions) to severe and irreversible conditions (the Netherlands, Belgium). I argue that the physical criterion in any form violates the equality of respect and moral status of a large class of people, thereby degrading them, and I supplement this with theological considerations drawn from Thomas Aquinas. Even if the slope were not slippery and the autonomy firewall prevented Dutch-style mission creep, the physical criterion itself degrades tens of thousands of sick, disabled, and dying people by insinuating that their lives-but crucially, not other people's-are "objectively" the sort of thing they might reasonably want to dispose of. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of The Journal of Christian Bioethics, Inc. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Disability; Dying; Assisted suicide; Equality; End-of-life; Respect; Aquinas