%0 Journal Article
%T Physician-assisted dying: thoughts drawn from Albert Camus' writing
%J Theoretical medicine and bioethics
%D 2018
%A Bozzaro, Claudia
%V 39
%N 2
%P 111-122
%X Physician-assisted dying (assisted suicide and euthanasia) is currently an intensely discussed topic in several countries. Despite differences in legislation and application, countries with end-of-life laws have similar eligibility criteria for assistance in dying: individuals must be in a hopeless situation and experience unbearable suffering. Hopelessness, as a basic aspect of the human condition, is a central topic in Albert Camus' philosophical work The Myth of Sisyphus, which addresses the question of suicide. Suffering in the face of a hopeless situation, and the way doctors approach this suffering, is the topic of his novel The Plague, which describes the story of a city confronted with a plague epidemic. In this paper, I draw philosophical and ethical conclusions about physician-assisted dying based on an analysis of central concepts in the work of Camus-specifically, those treated in The Myth of Sisyphus and The Plague. On the basis of my interpretation of Camus' work, I argue that hopelessness and unbearable suffering are useless as eligibility criteria for physician-assisted dying, given that they do not sufficiently elucidate where the line should be drawn between patients who should to be eligible for assistance and those who should not.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
%G en
%I Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group
%@ 1386-7415
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11017-018-9436-1