ABSTRACT
Death wishes have always been common among very old people, even when they do not suffer from a lethal disease and have no history of mental illness. Such death wishes are usually a response to suffering from an accumulation of losses of functional capacities, caused by the characteristic ailments of old age: loss of hearing, of sight, of mobility, of energy and concentration. If people in those conditions actually intend to end their lives, should it be permissible for doctors to help them?
It has often been argued that it is a mistake to burden the doctor with such a request because the problems that the patient wants to address basically are not medical but existential ones. Even if these existential concerns result from the loss of functional abilities, that loss could perhaps substantially be compensated for by social interventions. These arguments can be criticized but it remains a proper question why it should be a medical task to participate in a joint action of ending the patient's life in these cases. Why could it not be left to him to end his own life, by stopping eating and drinking or by acquiring access to lethal drugs?
