Getting the Law Right on Physician-Assisted Death

My aim with this paper is to focus on how the law could be improved to better respect and protect patients seeking assistance at the end-of-life, as well as protecting the doctors who assist them. This paper takes as its starting premise the fact that there are currently a number of deficiencies in the law relating to physician-assisted death. I want to argue that these deficiencies have the cumulative effect of rendering the operation of the law inconsistent, discriminatory and hypocritical, and that as a consequence of this dysfunctionality, the law is brought into disrepute. In exploring ways in which the law could be improved, I will be examining different legislative models for change: direct assistance at the request of a patient, based on the Netherlands model where the doctor administers the lethal dose, as well as the Oregon model of physician-assisted suicide where the doctor provides the lethal dose but the patient self-administers it, and I will be looking at the pros and cons of both of these models. Essentially, I argue that more functional, objectively realistic and transparent laws are needed to deal with end-of-life concerns.