ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the specific issues of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide considered from the standpoint of bioethics. Bioethics is a branch of ethics that deals with the ethical and social implications of biotechnology and the revolutionary developments in the biological sciences. Feminist bioethicists are therefore likely to be extremely cautious about any developments in relation to physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, and end-of-life decision making that place the doctor in the potentially paternalistic position of gatekeeper. Long regarded as the change driver in relation to voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, the Netherlands was the only country that legalized euthanasia until joined by Belgium in 2001. In 1990, after more than a decade of de facto legalization of euthanasia, the Remmelink Commission, chaired by the Attorney General, was set up to investigate euthanasia practice. At the Australian Medical Association conference that took place the weekend after Nancy Crick's death, Dr. Nitschke moved a motion to adopt a neutral position on euthanasia.
