The ink is barely dry on Canada’s expansive right to euthanasia and there is already much talk of expanding the killing to new categories–such as children.
Continue Reading → Never Enough Euthanasia in Canada
A journalist once asked me what I thought would be the major issues for ethics in the future. I responded, spontaneously, with three words: “complexity; uncertainty; potentiality”. My statement surprised me, as I had no idea where it came from or even what it might mean in relation to ethical analysis. Since then, I’ve pondered the latter.
Continue Reading → Complexity, uncertainty and potentiality in the euthanasia debate:
Assisted suicide laws are universally flawed because they fail to account for the fact that terminal illness diagnoses are sometimes a mistake.
Right to die, euthanasia, dying with dignity, assisted suicide: the language around this debate is enormously loaded, and shapes the way we feel about it.
Continue Reading → Language as a battlefield: How we got from euthanasia to voluntary assisted dying
The gold standard for human experimentation is a randomly-assigned double-blind placebo-controlled study. Unfortunately, organising such a study to assess the effectiveness of the lethal medications used for executions in the United States and for physician-assisted suicide (PAS) has significant ethical issues. We need to rely upon historical data.
Continue Reading → Will assisted suicide always provide a quick and gentle death?