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2. The Case for Active Voluntary Euthanasia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Helga Kuhse
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Extract

I want to begin by making the fundamental point that the question is not whether decisions to end human lives ought to be made but, rather, who makes these decisions, and on the basis of what principles or values. For the fact is that such decisions are already being made, and inevitably must be made, in modern hospitals.

For almost any life-threatening condition, modern medical technology can now delay the moment of death. Death will often not occur until and unless the decision has been made to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment. In other words, when and how a patient dies is increasingly the outcome of a deliberate human decision. Such decisions—not to resuscitate a terminally ill patient, not to continue to sustain the life of a permanently comatose patient. or to withhold antibiotics from the deaf and blind octogenarian—are all instances of the intentional termination of life and, if done for the patient's sake, are cases of passive euthanasia.

Type
Part II: Death and Dying
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 14 , Issue 3-4 , September 1986 , pp. 145 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1986

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References

See Kuhse, H., A Modern Myth: That Letting Die Is not the Intentional Causation of Death: Some Reflections on the Trial and Acquittal of Dr. Leonard Arthur, Journal of Applied Philosophy 1(1): 21 (1984).Google Scholar
Report of a Working Party, Euthanasia and Clinical Practice (London: Linacre Centre, 1982), p. 57 (my italics).Google Scholar
Social Development Committee, First Report, Inquiry into Options for Dying with Dignity (Parliament of Victoria, March 1986) [hereafter cited as First Report].Google Scholar
See H. Kuhse, submission to the Inquiry into Options for Dying with Dignity, May 1986.Google Scholar
First Report, supra note 3, at 11.Google Scholar
Kuhse, H., Sanctity-of-Life in Medicine, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming), chaps. 3–4.Google Scholar
President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1983), at 77–89.Google Scholar
See, e.g., Kellehear, Allan, Are We a “Death-Denying” Society? A Sociological Review, Social Science and Medicine 18(9): 713 (1984).Google Scholar
From E.Ph.R. Sutorius, How Euthanasia Was Legalized in Holland (unpublished paper).Google Scholar
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Battin, Pabst M., The Least Worst Death, Hastings Center Report 13(2): 13 (April 1983).Google ScholarPubMed
World Medical Assembly, Statement on Terminal Illness and Boxing: 35th Medical Assembly, Venice, Italy, 1983, Medical Journal of Australia 140: 431 (1984).Google Scholar