• J Contemp Health Law Policy · Jan 1990

    Rejecting criminal liability for life-shortening palliative care.

    • D G Casswell.
    • University of Victoria, British Columbia.
    • J Contemp Health Law Policy. 1990 Jan 1; 6: 127-44.

    AbstractIs it possible that a physician who administers life-shortening palliative care, even to a terminally ill patient with the patient's consent, commits murder? The Law Reform Commission of Canada, as part of its proposals on recodifying criminal law, has recommended that criminal liability not attach to the administration of life-shortening palliative care "appropriate in the circumstances." The author submits that while the aim of the Commission's recommendation is good, the phrase "appropriate in the circumstances" should be replaced with more specific criteria for determining when life-shortening palliative care may be administered. Failure to do so would leave physicians in almost as uncertain a situation as is presently the case, preventing them from administering such care without fear of criminal liability.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…