ABSTRACT
Chapters 4 and 5 consider which choices are covered by the right to determine the manner and time of one's own death. I first discuss the proper definition of suicide. I argue that we should count an action that leads to death as a suicide if it has been caused by a life-threatening process that has been initiated by the agent and that he could have stopped without the aid of another agent.
The rest of the chapter offers an extensive treatment of stopping eating and drinking as a way of ending one's life. Summarizing the available empirical literature I conclude that for (very) old and sick people it is a humane way of ending one's life, provided it is done with sufficient planning and care from others. Many authors have argued that it should not be considered a kind of suicide, because it is an ‘omission’ rather than an ‘action’. It should be seen as refusal of treatment. However, stopping eating and drinking differs from treatment refusal on both the criteria I have defended in the first section.
But even if it is suicide, the care that has to be provided by care-providers should be considered a kind of medically indicated palliative care, not of suicide assistance.
