Work

Lives Not Worth Living in Modern Euthanasia Regimes

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: ISSUES: The authors of "The Quiet Progress of the New Eugenics" (QPNE) assert that some current practices, such as euthanasia and/or assisted suicide (EAS) for disabled newborns, imply that some persons with disabilities have lives that are not worth living. FINDING: EAS for 'unbearable suffering,' the question of how we value the lives of disabled persons arises in a way that deserves more public discussion. I argue that the old and modern EAS regimes both create a class of persons whose lives are deemed by society as not worth living. I explain how the modern EAS regime's public goal of relieving suffering and its requirement for autonomous choice obscure but do not erase this fact. CONCLUSIONS: Although modern EAS regimes are based on suffering (not eugenics) and voluntary (not state coerced), they have the effect of creating lives that are societally deemed to be not worth living.

Source: Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities

DOI: 10.1111/jppi.12300

Author: Scott Y. H. Kim

Institutions: National Institutes of Health, National Institutes of Health Clinical Center

Language: English

Topic: Ethics and bioethics in healthcare

Subfield: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institutes of Health