Exploring contemporary forms of aid in dying: An ethnography of euthanasia in Belgium and assisted suicide in Switzerland

Hamarat, Natasia; Pillonel, Alexandre; Berthod, Marc-Antoine; Dransart, Dolores Angela Castelli; Lebeer, Guy

doi:10.1080/07481187.2021.1926635

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(9 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The role of healthcare professionals should also be discussed concerning whether and to what extent assistance with dying should be considered a medical act. In the Swiss system, for example, physicians are involved in the certification of the patient's mental competence, in the assessment of the congruence of the state of illness with the request, and in the prescription of the lethal drug [94]. The entire procedure is often supervised by volunteer staff and the presence of a physician is not mandatory in the preparation or administration of the drug, which often takes place in the domestic intimacy of the applicant.…”

Section: Cultural Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The admission of people suffering from psychiatric and neurocognitive disorders to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (E/PAS) in some European and non-European countries represents a controversial issue. In some countries, the initial limitation of E/PAS to cases of severe physical illness with poor prognosis in the short term has been overcome, as it was considered discriminatory; thus, E/PAS has also been made available to subjects suffering from mental disorders. This decision has raised significant ethical questions regarding the capacity and freedom of self-determination; the family, social, and economic contexts; the social consideration of the sense of dignity and the pressure on the judgment of one’s personal value; the contextual therapeutic possibilities; the identification of figures involved in the validation and application; as well as the epistemological definitions of the clinical conditions in question. To these issues must be added the situation of legislative vacuum peculiar to different countries and the widespread lack of effective evaluation and control systems. Nonetheless, pessimistic indicators on global health status, availability of care and assistance, aging demographics, and socioeconomic levels suggest that there may be further pressure toward the expansion of such requests. The present paper aims to trace an international overview with the aim of providing ethical support to the debate on the matter. Precisely, the goal is the delimitation of foundations for clinical practice in the complex field of psychiatry between the recognition of the irreversibility of the disease, assessment of the state of physical and mental suffering, as well as the possibility of adopting free and informed choices.

show abstract

Section: Cultural Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Pott et al (2014) note that requesters' motivations must convince right-to-die societies' volunteers regarding the irrevocability of the decision and the intensity of suffering (p. 75). In this issue, Hamarat et al (2021) show, based on an ethnography of assisted suicide, that volunteers have a certain margin of appreciation in the interpretation of the right-to-die society's criteria. Volunteers who entertain doubts for example, regarding the person's determination, or the intolerability of suffering may refuse a request or withdraw from the process.…”

Section: What Resources Exist To Guide Ethical Judgments In Maid Assessments?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethical judgment in assessing requests for medical assistance in dying in Canada and Quebec: What can we learn from other jurisdictions?

Gupta

Blouin

2021

Death Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper concerns the ethical judgment that lies at the heart of assessing requests for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) in Canada and Quebec, namely is it ethically right to help the person requesting assistance to end his or her life? We address situations in which making this judgment may be challenging despite the person fulfilling legal eligibility requirements. Using three clinical cases that are challenging by virtue of the legal requirement that a person experience intolerable suffering we explore this issue. We review practice guidance provided to providers and assessors in six jurisdictions and discuss potential resources to inform the ethical judgments involved in MAID assessments.

show abstract

“…We consider the phrase "assisted dying" to be too passive, as it does not reflect the deliberate actions taken in the process of assisting a person's death. We did not retain the term "medical" to qualify the assistance because assistance in dying is not considered a medical act in jurisdictions such as Switzerland (see Balard et al, 2021, in this issue;Gupta & Blouin, 2021, in this issue;Hamarat et al, 2021, in this issue). The term "dying" serves to stress that dying is a process, albeit shortened, in our context, by the assistance.…”

Section: Defining Assistance In Dyingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assistance in dying: Conditions for international comparison

Blouin

Pott

2021

Death Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This special issue of Death Studies interrogates conditions for conducting international comparisons of assistance in dying regimes, and of related discourses and practices. To do so, it provides comparative social sciences and humanities perspectives on assistance in dying. In this editorial introduction, we first trace the origin of this special issue to the symposium held in 2018 in Lausanne, Switzerland. We then offer a short exploration of how assistance in dying regimes have been compared in the literature. Finally, we identify key conditions for conducting international comparisons of assistance in dying based on the articles presented in this issue of Death Studies.

show abstract

Exploring contemporary forms of aid in dying: An ethnography of euthanasia in Belgium and assisted suicide in Switzerland

Cited by 12 publications

References 19 publications

Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die

Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Mental Disorders: Ethical Positions in the Debate between Proportionality, Dignity, and the Right to Die

Ethical judgment in assessing requests for medical assistance in dying in Canada and Quebec: What can we learn from other jurisdictions?

Assistance in dying: Conditions for international comparison

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About