Compassion Needs Reason Too

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A GROWING number of physicians today believe that it is morally permissible, perhaps even required, to assist certain of their patients in the act of suicide.1-4They take their inspiration from Quill's account of the way he assisted his young patient, Diane, to kill herself.5They are impressed by Quill's compassion and respect for his patient. Like him, they would limit the physician's participation in suicide to extreme cases in which suffering is unrelenting, unrelievable, and unbearable. Like him, they follow a flawed line of moral reasoning in which a compassionate response to a request for assisted suicide is deemed sufficient in itself to justify an ethically indefensible act. See also pp 870 and 875. In his article6in this issue ofThe Journal, Quill provides a more formal and systematic outline of what he believes the appropriate response of physicians should be to a request for

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: