By Ezio Di Nucci. You are probably tired of discussing COVID-19; but please bear with me because the question I want to address here is a bit unusual: not whether too many people have died because of the pandemic, but whether too few people might have actually died. No, that’s not a typo – but […]
Category: death and/or dying
The importance of mourning rituals to the dead
By Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues. In Sophocles’ play Antigone, Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, decides that, as a punishment for Polynices’s rebellion, Polynices will not receive a proper funeral but will instead lie unburied on the battlefield to be eaten by animals. Antigone, one of Polynices’s sisters, defies Creon’s orders and gives her brother a funeral […]
Psychiatric patients and the decisional authority in the context of euthanasia. Is the psychiatrist a competent gatekeeper?
By Frank Schweitser In Belgium people with an incurable psychiatric disorder can file a request for euthanasia claiming unbearable psychic suffering. For the request to be accepted, it has to meet stringent legal criteria. Psychiatrists play an important role in the evaluation of these criteria. One of the legal requirements is that the patient possess […]
The importance of mourning rituals to the dead
By Luís Cordeiro Rodrigues In Sophocles’ play Antigone, Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, decides that, as a punishment for Polynices’s rebellion, Polynices will not receive a proper funeral but will instead lie unburied on the battlefield to be eaten by animals. Antigone, one of Polynices’s sisters, defies Creon’s orders and gives her brother a […]
Supreme Court rules on the first prosecution of a Dutch doctor since the euthanasia act
Eva C.A. Asscher and Suzanne van de Vathorst. On April 21st the Supreme Court passed judgement on the case of the first doctor to be prosecuted since the 2002 Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act. In September 2019 a Dutch nursing home doctor performing euthanasia on a patient with severe […]
Advance euthanasia directives
By Jonathan A Hughes. The first doctor to have been prosecuted under the Dutch euthanasia law since it came into force in 2002 was recently acquitted by that country’s criminal court. Disturbing features of the case, in which a woman was euthanised on the basis of an advance euthanasia directive (AED), were reported and discussed […]
Why a relational account cannot rule out infanticide if abortion is permissible
By Bruce Blackshaw and Daniel Rodger It is widely recognised that late-term fetuses and infants differ little in features that are thought to be morally relevant such as consciousness and rationality. This poses a problem for ethicists who argue for the permissibility of abortion but wish to rule out infanticide. Some just bite the bullet—Alberto […]
Highest German court defends the constitutional right to (assisted) suicide
By Ruth Horn. On 26th April 2020, the German Constitutional Court overturned a law of 2015 prohibiting ‘any business-like assisted suicide’. This included any potentially recurring suicide assistance that might be provided, with or without commercial interests, by a doctor, nurse, relative or member of a right-to-die organisation. Although suicide and therefore also assisted suicide […]
Can survival be a harm? The German Federal Court of Justice rules on a claim for damages after life-sustaining treatment
Ulrich Pfeifer and Ruth Horn. Should it be permissible to convict a doctor who has performed life-sustaining treatment (LST) without medical indication? At first sight, the answer seems obvious: a medical intervention is only lawful if there is 1) valid consent and 2) a medical necessity that is medical indication. In the absence of either […]
The errant ways we talk about brain death
By Jordan Potter and Jason Lesandrini On November 4, 2019, newspapers across the USA reported on the tragic and untimely death of Mr. Nebane Abienwi – a 37-year-old asylum-seeking migrant from Cameroon who died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Per an ICE report, physicians at Sharp […]