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An autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide: a way to avoid the expressivist objection against assisted dying laws

In several jurisdictions, irremediable suffering from a medical condition is a legal requirement for access to assisted dying. According to the expressivist objection, allowing assisted dying for a specific group of persons, such as those with irremediable medical conditions, expresses the judgment...

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Autor principal: Braun, Esther
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10359509/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36190931
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jme-2022-108375
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author Braun, Esther
author_facet Braun, Esther
author_sort Braun, Esther
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description In several jurisdictions, irremediable suffering from a medical condition is a legal requirement for access to assisted dying. According to the expressivist objection, allowing assisted dying for a specific group of persons, such as those with irremediable medical conditions, expresses the judgment that their lives are not worth living. While the expressivist objection has often been used to argue that assisted dying should not be legalised, I show that there is an alternative solution available to its proponents. An autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide regards the provision of assisted suicide (but not euthanasia) as justified when it is autonomously requested by a person, irrespective of whether this is in her best interests. Such an approach has been put forward by a recent judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court, which understands assisted suicide as an expression of the person’s right to a self-determined death. It does not allow for beneficence-based restrictions regarding the person’s suffering or medical diagnosis and therefore avoids the expressivist objection. I argue that on an autonomy-based approach, assisted suicide should not be understood as a medical procedure but rather as the person’s autonomous action.
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spelling pubmed-103595092023-07-22 An autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide: a way to avoid the expressivist objection against assisted dying laws Braun, Esther J Med Ethics Original Research In several jurisdictions, irremediable suffering from a medical condition is a legal requirement for access to assisted dying. According to the expressivist objection, allowing assisted dying for a specific group of persons, such as those with irremediable medical conditions, expresses the judgment that their lives are not worth living. While the expressivist objection has often been used to argue that assisted dying should not be legalised, I show that there is an alternative solution available to its proponents. An autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide regards the provision of assisted suicide (but not euthanasia) as justified when it is autonomously requested by a person, irrespective of whether this is in her best interests. Such an approach has been put forward by a recent judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court, which understands assisted suicide as an expression of the person’s right to a self-determined death. It does not allow for beneficence-based restrictions regarding the person’s suffering or medical diagnosis and therefore avoids the expressivist objection. I argue that on an autonomy-based approach, assisted suicide should not be understood as a medical procedure but rather as the person’s autonomous action. BMJ Publishing Group 2023-07 2022-09-07 /pmc/articles/PMC10359509/ /pubmed/36190931 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jme-2022-108375 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Original Research
Braun, Esther
An autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide: a way to avoid the expressivist objection against assisted dying laws
title An autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide: a way to avoid the expressivist objection against assisted dying laws
title_full An autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide: a way to avoid the expressivist objection against assisted dying laws
title_fullStr An autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide: a way to avoid the expressivist objection against assisted dying laws
title_full_unstemmed An autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide: a way to avoid the expressivist objection against assisted dying laws
title_short An autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide: a way to avoid the expressivist objection against assisted dying laws
title_sort autonomy-based approach to assisted suicide: a way to avoid the expressivist objection against assisted dying laws
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10359509/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36190931
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jme-2022-108375
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