the irony of patient autonomy …

… in the setting of physician assisted suicide and euthanasia …

“The secular version of a “good death” is a terribly lonely one. Placing the emphasis on unbearable suffering and the patient’s autonomy, or right to “die with dignity,” is supremely ironic because the patient is never truly autonomous as he asks the community, in the guise of the physician and with the law’s approval, to perform euthanasia. A“good death” eliminates suffering by eliminating the sufferer.”

Joseph Tham. The Secularization of Death in a Technological Age. Studia Bioethica. 3(1):2010, 40-46.