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Review
[Hastening death by voluntary stopping of eating and drinking. A new mode of assisted suicide?]
- Pablo Requena and Antonio de Pádua Andrade Dos Santos.
- Cattedra di Bioetica Pontificia Università della Santa Croce Roma. requena@pusc.it.
- Cuad Bioet. 2018 Sep 1; 29 (97): 257-268.
AbstractIn the last few years, the new catch phrase ″voluntary stopping of eating and drinking″ has made its appearance in the medical and bioethical literature. The practice, whose ″primary intention″ is to hasten the death of a person who does not want to continue living, has been proposed as an alternative to euthanasia and assisted suicide. Some authors present it as a valid option from both the ethical and legal point of view arguing that it is basically a ″natural death″ in the same line as a limitation of treatment and does not involve suicide. In this article we present a critical review of the recent literature and reach the conclusion that it is very difficult to consider this practice as anything other than a type of suicide. In consequence, healthcare workers should consider it alien to medical ethos and good clinical practice.
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