Buturovic, Z. (2021). Embracing slippery slope on physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia could have significant unintended consequences. Journal of Medical Ethics, 47(4), 257-258.
This article presents a critical account of physician-assisted euthanasia, or physician-assisted suicide, focusing on distinguishing somatic and psychiatric patients. While the author maintains an ethical position regarding the approval of euthanasia for the former, he emphasizes many ethical, legal, and public controversies and negative consequences for the latter group of patients. The article presents a more thorough development of the research argument since the consideration will include the distinction between different groups of patients. In addition, the arguments presented in this source allow one to be more sensitive to distinguish between healthy adults and patients.
Brody, J. E. (2021). When patients choose to end their lives. The New York Times. Web.
The author engages with the critical arguments of assisted suicide conditions even in those states in which this procedure is legal. Presenting the reader with a detailed and detailed overview of the relationship to euthanasia on the part of judicial and medical systems as well as personal attitudes, she demonstrates the main controversies between legal entities, medical organizations, and patients when dealing with the question of PAS. This text is useful for my future research in terms of an example of incorporating personal stories into more global and generalized discourses dealing with medical ethics.
Cholbi, M. J. (Ed.). (2017). Euthanasia and assisted suicide: global views on choosing to end life. ABC-CLIO.
The book is a collection of rich theoretical and empirical material on euthanasia around the world. Presenting the reader with the global context of the phenomenon, the author acquaints the reader with the history of the concept, its contradictory development in various countries and regions, including religious aspects, and shows the different international law and ethics approaches to various methods of euthanasia. An important point here is the demonstration that euthanasia was not perceived as a physician-assisted procedure in all socio-historical contexts. Thus, this source will allow me to place my research in the broader context of world history and the practice of euthanasia through comparative analysis. In addition, the theoretical positions of the book will make it possible to substantiate the argument that in the United States, it is medicine and medical practitioners who are the main and only actors in the commission of euthanasia.
Death With Dignity. (2021). How Death with Dignity Laws Work. Death With Dignity National Center and Death with Dignity Political Fund. Web.
This source provides stakeholders (primarily patients and healthcare providers) with detailed information on how the legal framework for euthanasia in the United States works and where PAS is permitted. In addition to factual information that makes it possible to enrich my research with an interdisciplinary overview, the text also emphasizes that the cost of human life in relation to both legal and moral phenomena puts any social and legal problem affecting this right among the global, universal problems of the modern world. Such a right cannot be understood in isolation from other constitutional provisions, such as human dignity. By itself, the mechanism for the enforcement of constitutional rights is a rather complex phenomenon, while not all of the elements of which have found legislative confirmation. Euthanasia is one such element.
Emanuel, E. J., Onwuteaka-Philipsen, B. D., Urwin, J. W., & Cohen, J. (2016). Attitudes and practices of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Jama, 316(1), 79-90.
The article provides a detailed overview of the rich empirical evidence on attitudes towards euthanasia and its legal status in the US, Canada, and Europe. An essential advantage of the research is the comparative perspective, as well as the long period considered by the authors: from 1947 to 2016. In addition, a distinctive feature of this research is the variety of analyzed sources and documents: their evidence review included polling data, published surveys, official state databases, interview studies, and death certificates. The authors of the study paid attention to both the development of public opinion and changes in medical, legal, and government discourses. Accordingly, this article will be beneficial for my research in three respects: a more detailed comparative analysis of various practices of attitude and law enforcement from a historical perspective, a comparison of discourses at different levels: patient-doctor-state, and also as a study of secondary data on the issue under consideration.
Keown, J. (2018). Euthanasia, ethics and public policy: an argument against legalisation. Cambridge University Press.
The author, a senior lecturer in the law and ethics of medicine at Cambridge University, is a well-known strong critic of euthanasia. In polemics with advocates of the legalization of the procedure, he presents many detailed arguments. Among them are the too narrow definition of euthanasia as “voluntary active euthanasia,” slippery slope argument, too vague definitions of legal terms which rely only on moral grounds of patients’ experiences, and many other reasons for the procedure’s criticism. The author engages with an interdisciplinary framework of social, legal, medical, bioethical, and state attitudes and logic behind PAS. The book will be beneficial for my research in terms of refinement of my argument for the reason that the initial premise of my thesis has a long history and has been debated. In order to present a relevant, timely argument, one has to deal with timely criticism.