MISGUIDED GUIDELINES

The proposed guidelines would require detailed, probing inquiry into motivation for choosing assisted suicide. This is an appropriate requirement in principle. In practice, it will be virtually impossible to carry out this inquiry within likely statutory time limits. Evaluators most likely will eith...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology, public policy, and law public policy, and law, 2000-06, Vol.6 (2), p.382-387
Main Author: Burt, Robert A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Assisted Suicide
Bioethics
Competence
Decision Making
Human
Humans
Legal Processes
Legislation, Medical
Measurement
Mental Competency - standards
Motivation
Oregon
Physician-Patient Relations
Physicians
Practice Guidelines as Topic
Suicide, Assisted - legislation & jurisprudence
Suicide, Assisted - psychology
Terminally Ill
Treatment Guidelines
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Summary:The proposed guidelines would require detailed, probing inquiry into motivation for choosing assisted suicide. This is an appropriate requirement in principle. In practice, it will be virtually impossible to carry out this inquiry within likely statutory time limits. Evaluators most likely will either reject the guidelines as impractical or give them merely perfunctory observance. There is, moreover, an inherent tension in the evaluator's relationship with the patient between empathy and impersonal distancing that the guidelines do not adequately acknowledge; this tension necessarily compromises the evaluator's ability to apply the guidelines in the probing, detailed manner they envision. The guidelines provide false comfort that physician-assisted suicide can be carried out with adequately sensitive monitoring of voluntariness and mental competence.
ISSN:1076-8971
1939-1528
DOI:10.1037/1076-8971.6.2.382