Physician Assistance in Dying: An Option for Christians?

Opposition to physician-assisted suicide is widespread in Christian ethics. However, on a topic as controversial as physician-assisted suicide, no one can reasonably speak for "the Christian" perspective. Natural-law and, specifically, just-war thinking are claimed in the Christian traditi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Steffen, Lloyd H. 1951- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press 2021
In: Christian bioethics
Year: 2021, Volume: 27, Issue: 3, Pages: 228-249
IxTheo Classification:NCH Medical ethics
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Summary:Opposition to physician-assisted suicide is widespread in Christian ethics. However, on a topic as controversial as physician-assisted suicide, no one can reasonably speak for "the Christian" perspective. Natural-law and, specifically, just-war thinking are claimed in the Christian tradition, yet the natural-law contribution to a Christian ethical analysis of physician-assisted suicide requires explanation and defense. Natural-law ethical theory affirms the central role of reason in moral thinking and provides a theoretical resource in contemporary ethics to assist in analyzing specific moral issues, problems, and conflicts. This essay seeks to demonstrate how just-war thinking, derived from natural-law tradition, allows movement from the theoretical world of natural-law theory to the practical world of normative ethics. Here the case is made that the just-war model of ethics helps elucidate the moral problematic involved in physician-assisted suicide while clarifying direction on this particularly thorny and controversial problem.
ISSN:1744-4195
Contains:Enthalten in: Christian bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/cb/cbab012