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On Hastening Death Without Violating Legal Or Moral Prohibitions, Norman L. Cantor

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

While the vast majority of fatally afflicted persons have a powerful wish to remain alive, some stricken persons may, for any of a host of reasons, desire to hasten death. Some persons are afflicted with chronic degenerative diseases that take a grievous toll. Chronic pain may be severe and intractable, anxiety about a future treatment regimen may be distressing, and helplessness may erode personal dignity and soil the image that the afflicted person wants to leave behind.

A dying patient’s interest in hastening death is often said to be in tension with a bedrock social principle that respect for sanctity …