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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences
The Right To Die With Dignity: An Argument In Ethics And Law, Raphael Cohen-Almagor
The Right To Die With Dignity: An Argument In Ethics And Law, Raphael Cohen-Almagor
raphael cohen-almagor
We face a dilemma. Suppose there is a person who suffers great pain and wants to die. Those who believe life is intrinsically valuable object to taking life and to taking any action on the person’s desire because the end of life is something granted only to nature, and is not a decision that is incumbent on human beings. However, this objection ignores the autonomy of the agent’s concerns, because she might say: “I would like to die. I would rather die in these circumstances because I don’t feel that I am adding anything just by surviving.” Can life be …
Book Review: "Human Dignity And Bioethics: Essays Commissioned By The President's Council On Bioethics, Leslie Meltzer Henry
Book Review: "Human Dignity And Bioethics: Essays Commissioned By The President's Council On Bioethics, Leslie Meltzer Henry
Faculty Scholarship
The President’s Council on Bioethics frequently invokes -- but never defines -- the notion of human dignity in its reports on caregiving, stem-cell research, cloning, assisted reproduction, and biomedical enhancement. This article argues that the Council employs the language of dignity so loosely in its policy recommendations that the word is often nothing more than a rhetorical trump card to reject policies at odds with the Bush administration’s perspective. This article examines how the Council uses the word dignity; explores competing philosophical, theological, and political understandings of the word; and suggests ways in which a more productive dialogue about dignity's …