Confronting Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: My Father's Death

Abstract:     
This article recounts the author’s struggle with her dying father’s request to “accelerate” death. After termination of artificial nutrition and hydration, he asks, in effect, for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. The author initially refuses. But her devotion to her father forces her to reconsider her position. “My father’s death forced me to rethink all I had written over two decades opposing legalization of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia.” In this article, narrative meets analytic scholarship, as the author is compelled to reconsider arguments developed over years of research and scholarship as her father lies dying. She finds the answer not just in logic, but in act of caring for her father and growing even closer as death nears.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 4

Keywords: Euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, health law, law and medicine, bioethics, narrative

Accepted Paper Series