1997) 44(5) NY Rev of Books 41 Assisted Suicide: The Philosophers' Brief By Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, Robert Nozick, John Rawls, T.M. Scanlon, Judith Jarvis Thomson Later this year the Supreme Court will decide two cases posing the question whether dying patients have a right to choose death rather than continued pain and suffering.We print here the brief filed as amicus curiae in these cases by the group of six moral philosophers listed above, with an introduction by Ronald Dworkin.
On October 27, 1997 Oregon enacted the Death with Dignity Act which allows terminally-ill Oregonians to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications, expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose. The Oregon Death with Dignity Act requires the Oregon Department of Human Services to collect information about the patients and physicians who participate in the Act, and publish an annual statistical report.
Proponents for the legalization of physician assisted suicide (PAS ) argue that it has been legal in Oregon since 1997 and that it works well. They maintain that palliative and hospice care can co-exist comfortably with the option for PAS. My aim was to examine these claims, in two cities in the Northwest of America; Seattle where there is no legalized PAS and Portland where PAS is legal.
Physician assisted suicide has been legal for a decade in the US state of Oregon. But palliative care specialist David Jeffrey says there are grave questions about whether people are being helped to die, when treatment for depression could be a highly successful alternative. In this week's Scrubbing Up column Dr Jeffrey, who is based at the University of Edinburgh, says a patient should be free to end their life - but doctors should not be involved.
The physician-assisted suicide law that goes into effect today in Washington State allows hospitals and doctors to refuse to participate, creating a difficult decision for those who deal with end-of-life care.
The Supreme Court in the US state of Montana is due to begin hearing arguments to decide if severely ill people there have the constitutional right to ask their doctor to help them die. A lower court judgement last December decided that they did, but now the state of Montana is trying to have that ruling overturned.