Regulating How We Die: The Ethical, Medical and Legal Issues Surrounding Physician-Assisted Suicide

Ed Linda L Emanuel

Harvard University Press, 11$.95, pp 315

ISBN 0 674 66654 2

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All physicians are confronted with dying, which is difficult emotionally when dealing with patients and their relatives, and professionally when the question of “helping” a patient to die is raised. Associations that come to mind are compassion, alleviation of pain, autonomy, dying with dignity, and withdrawing treatment—but, above all else, “Do no harm.” These terms conjure up intense emotions, opinions, expectations, and, for some, memories. As the book notes, “Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia may appear to be a hot new topic. But …