title: Active euthanasia and forgoing life-sustaining treatment: can we hold the line?
abstract: Public sentiment in favor of permitting voluntary active euthanasia creates a dilemma for a bioethics rooted in a libertarian notion of autonomy. At stake in the active euthanasia debate is actually a question of power--the individual's assertion of sovereignty over the timing and circumstances of his or her own death. Also at stake is society's unwillingness to impose a conception of the good--and a good dying--on individuals whose personal values and conceptions of the good may differ. In order both to reject voluntary active euthanasia and to affirm the patient's right to forgo life-sustaining treatment, some societal conception of the good must be developed and agreed upon to counter unbridled claims of individual self-sovereignty over dying. Pragmatic arguments alone, such as the need to maintain confidence in the doctor-patient relationship, will not be sufficient.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jennings
mesh_terms: D026686:Beneficence; D001675:Bioethics; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005065:Euthanasia; D028601:Euthanasia, Active; D033101:Euthanasia, Active, Voluntary; D005066:Euthanasia, Passive; D006801:Humans; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012945:Social Values; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D013405:Suicide; D014481:United States