@article{ref1,
title="Contesting the equivalency of continuous sedation until death and physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia: a commentary on LiPuma",
journal="Journal of medicine and philosophy",
year="2015",
author="Raho, Joseph A. and Miccinesi, Guido",
volume="40",
number="5",
pages="529-553",
abstract="Patients who are imminently dying sometimes experience symptoms refractory to traditional palliative interventions, and in rare cases, continuous sedation is offered. Samuel H. LiPuma, in a recent article in this Journal, argues that continuous sedation until death is equivalent to physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia based on a higher brain neocortical definition of death. We contest his position that continuous sedation involves killing and offer four objections to the equivalency thesis. First, sedation practices are proportional in a way that physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia is not. Second, continuous sedation may not entirely abolish consciousness. Third, LiPuma's particular version of higher brain neocortical death relies on an implausibly weak construal of irreversibility-a position that is especially problematic in the case of continuous sedation. Finally, we explain why continuous sedation until death is not functionally equivalent to neocortical death and, hence, physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia. Concluding remarks review the differences between these two end-of-life practices.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0360-5310",
doi="10.1093/jmp/jhv018",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhv018"
}