By Richard B. Gibson. Nature recently published a study by a team at Yale University in which the circulation and cellular activity of a pig’s vital organs – pancreas, liver, kidney, heart, lungs, and even brain – were restored over an hour after death. While exploratory, the study’s results are nonetheless remarkable, challenging the intuition […]
Category: death and/or dying
Who gets to decide when I can’t? End of life decision-making and deceased donation
By Dominique E. Martin and Shih-Ning Then Most of us have ideas about how we want decisions to be made at the end of our lives, and some of us also have strong views about donating our organs and tissues after we die. Many of us appoint a loved one to make decisions on our […]
Finding meaning in loss: family experience of research on imminently dying patients in the intensive care unit
By Amanda van Beinum, Nicholas Murphy, Charles Weijer, and Jennifer Chandler “…this study […] it was a way of […] making him live on, in certain ways, or be able to say, ‘hey my dad did this’ you know, we did this, and maybe some good will come out of it…” Intensive care units can […]
Regulation of aid to die: the Spanish case.
By Tamara Raquel Velasco Sanz, Pilar Pinto Pastor, Beatriz Moreno-Milán, Lydia Frances Mower Hanlon, Benjamín Herreros. Since its entry into force, on 25th June 2021, euthanasia and medically assisted suicide are part of the portfolio of services of the Spanish National Health System. In this way, Spain has become the fourth European country, after the […]
The prisoner’s dilemma: The role of medical professionals in executions
By L. Elisabeth Armstrong A March 2021 Op-Ed in Washington Post asserts that Capital Punishment is ending in America. With twenty-three states abolishing the practice, another three institutionalizing moratoriums, and serious debate surrounding a moratorium on federal executions, it might seem that this is the case. However, much of the country continues to advance the […]
Disability, mental illness, and medical assistance in dying in Canada: Recent slippery slope and social determinants of health arguments miss the mark
By Jocelyn Downie and Udo Schuklenk In its 2015 landmark Carter decision, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled that the blanket criminalisation of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) unjustifiably infringes on Canadians’ rights and declared that the prohibitions were: “of no force or effect to the extent that they prohibit physician-assisted death for a competent adult person […]
Medical assistance in dying—is there a case for including persons with mental illness?
By Nicholas Delva, Anees Bahji Over the last couple of decades, medical assistance in dying (MAiD) has become legal in a few developed countries. Developments in this area have been primarily driven by patients, with general support from the population. Governments have been cautious in the development of legislation, which is not surprising given that […]
Where souls refuse to go
By Pauline Thiele In 2010 I was urged to write about our son, Liam, and submit the narrative for publication with the Journal of Medical Ethics. The three following three people, in the said order, were my greatest encouragement and support throughout the submission: Andrew Watkins (neonatologist), John Harris (the then editor-in-chief of JME/bioethicist), and […]
Enough already about conscientious objection in voluntary assisted dying – what about the conscientious participants?
By Jodhi Rutherford There is a copious literature on conscientious objection in voluntary assisted dying (VAD), also known as MAID, voluntary euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, or death with dignity. Yet, there has been relative silence in the bioethics literature on what might motivate ‘conscientious participation’ in VAD, whereby clinicians may actively, morally, and purposively support the […]
The current call for a (fresh) inquiry on assisted suicide
By Nataly Papadopoulou. As a society and as individuals, we face challenges in dealing with debilitating, horrible diseases causing suffering, indignity, and loss of autonomy. With increased emphasis on individual autonomy in a clinical but also in a legal setting, some patients wish to control the end of their lives. Perhaps one of the most […]