ABSTRACT
In the debate, the basis for concerning the legalization of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), it has been implicitly assumed that if legal prohibitions are lifted, patients with progressive, terminal diseases will request and, under appropriate conditions, should receive suicide assistance from their physicians while they are being care for in the hospital assumption. This chapter examines the basis for this assumption. Even if PAS is legalized, there are reasons for not introducing it into the practice of hospital medicine. Hospitals owned or operated by, or closely affiliated with, religious organizations which regard abortion as morally forbidden are not obligated to provide elective abortions to patients. People who are ill with chronic, progressive, fatal diseases have high rates of clinically significant depression. A principal moral concern of opponents of PAS has been the possibility of a transition along a slippery slope from the assistance of voluntary suicide by physicians to voluntary euthanasia and then to involuntary euthanasia.
