Overview

Should terminally ill adults be allowed to kill themselves with their physician's assistance? While a few American states as well as Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxembourg have answered yes, in the vast majority of the United States, assisted death remains illegal. This book provides a historical and comparative perspective that not only frames contemporary debates about assisted death and deepens readers' understanding of the issues at stake, but also enables realistic predictions for the likelihood of the future diffusion of legalization to more countries or states the consequences of which are vast. Spanning a period from 1906 to the present day, Dying with Dignity: A Legal Approach to Assisted Death examines how and why pleas for legalization of euthanasia made at the beginning of the 20th century were transmuted into the physician-assisted suicide laws in existence today, in the United States as well as around the world. After an introductory section that discusses the phenomenon of medicalization of death, author Giza Lopes, PhD, covers the history of the legal development of aid-in-dying in the United States, focusing on case studies from the late 1900s to today, then addresses assisted death in select European nations. The concluding section discusses what the past legal developments and decisions could portend for the future of assisted death.

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9781440830983

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Author Information

Giza Lopes, PhD, is a postdoctoral associate at the School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, NY.

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