Letter
“Right to die”: Legal view of right to life and death could threaten philosophy of palliative care
Cite this as:
BMJ
2005;330:1388.1
- End of life decisions (ethics)
- End of life decisions (geriatric medicine)
- End of life decisions (palliative care)
- Ethics
- Ethics of reproduction
- Geriatric medicine
- Hospice
- Human rights
- Neurology
- Occupational and environmental medicine
- Pain (anaesthesia)
- Pain (neurology)
- Pain (palliative care)
- Palliative care
- Poisoning
- Psychiatry
- Public health
- Resuscitation
- Rheumatology
- Sociology
- Suicide (psychiatry)
- Suicide (public health)
More topics 
Fewer topics
- John C Chambers, medical director (dr.ch@mbers.info)
- Katharine House Hospice, Adderbury, Oxfordshire OX17 3NL
EDITOR—Grayling claims that the “right to life” means quite a rich life; withholding treatment with death as the result and giving treatment that causes death are indistinguishable; and death is the ultimate analgesic.1 Grayling also implies that the double effect is widely abused.
The EC Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms protects against intentional deprivation of life.2 Quality of life is not mentioned, and terminating …
Sign in
Personal subscribers, sign in here:
Article access
Article access for 1 day
Purchase this article for £20 $30 €32*
The PDF version can be downloaded as your personal record
CiteULike
Connotea
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
Technorati
Twitter
Stumbleupon
Rapid responses
Latest Responses
Re: How much of a social media profile can doctors have?
Published 13 February 2012
Re: Diagnosis and management of Raynaud’s phenomenon
Published 13 February 2012
Re: Is it unethical for doctors to encourage healthy adults to donate a kidney to a stranger? No
Published 13 February 2012
Re: Report predicts 20 million AIDS orphans in Africa by 2010
Published 13 February 2012
Re: On the impossibility of being expert
Published 13 February 2012
Most responses
Does anyone understand the government’s plan for the NHS? (17 responses)
Published 17 Jan 2012
Bad medicine: medical nutrition (15 responses)
Published 18 Jan 2012
Shared decision making: really putting patients at the centre of healthcare (8 responses)
Published 27 Jan 2012
How much of a social media profile can doctors have? (7 responses)
Published 23 Jan 2012
Why legislation is necessary for my health reforms (7 responses)
Published 1 Feb 2012