ABSTRACT

Below is a brief proposal for a legal regime for regulating choices to die and assisting others to die. The proposal assumes that in some circumstances it is morally legitimate to choose to end one’s own life and for registered medical practitioners to assist a person in realising a wish to die. Of course, these assumptions are contestable. 1 No attempt will be made to

from the perspective of one who believes that certain persons in dire straits should receive assistance in dying provided they have a ‘voluntary, clear, settled and informed’ wish to die. 2 Ideally, the assistance should take the form of assisting suicide or voluntary euthanasia, whatever is best suited to the circumstances and wishes of V. An important requirement is that V must have a ‘settled’ wish to die in the sense that it is most unlikely that V will change his or her mind about wishing to die whatever form of therapy is brought to bear. That would almost certainly be the case for Q in the second hypothetical case above. Contrast P in the fi rst case. At the time of his suicidal state his resolve to die might well have been fi rm, and yet he was a suitable case for therapeutic intervention. He would fall outside the class of persons who, under the proposal sketched below, may lawfully receive assistance in dying.