Confronting Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: My Father's Death
The Hastings Center Report, Vol. 38, No. 5, pp. 23-26, 2008
4 Pages Posted: 13 Dec 2010 Last revised: 25 Dec 2010
Date Written: September 1, 2008
Abstract
This article recounts the author’s struggle with her dying father’s request to “accelerate” death. After termination of artificial nutrition and hydration, he asks, in effect, for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. The author initially refuses. But her devotion to her father forces her to reconsider her position. “My father’s death forced me to rethink all I had written over two decades opposing legalization of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia.” In this article, narrative meets analytic scholarship, as the author is compelled to reconsider arguments developed over years of research and scholarship as her father lies dying. She finds the answer not just in logic, but in act of caring for her father and growing even closer as death nears.
Keywords: Euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, health law, law and medicine, bioethics, narrative
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