Time to legalise assisted dying?: What autonomy really means

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7520.841-c

BMJ 2005;331:841-842 (8 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7520.841-c

Letter

Time to legalise assisted dying?

What autonomy really means

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Branthwaite makes it all sound simple.¹ For theassisted dying lobby, autonomy is the ruling principle in medicalethics. It trumps all other principles. But there is a deepirony here: death abolishes autonomy. Dead men cannot choose.So if you really respect autonomy, you have to be very carefulabout giving autonomy its head.

Of course if people are simply asked: "Would you like to bein control when you die?" most would say that they would. Butbeing truly in control means being in possession of sufficientinformation to make an informed choice, as well as being ina state of mind properly to consider that information.

Sufficient information, in the case of a truly autonomous assisteddying, must mean all relevant information: there will be nochance to review things later. Few people at the stage of consideringassisted dying for themselves will have either . . . [Full text of this article]

Charles A Foster, barrister

Outer Temple Chambers, London WC2R 1BA charles.foster@outertemple.com