J Med Ethics. 2015 Jan 22. pii: medethics-2013-101953. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2013-101953. [Epub ahead of print]

Physician-assisted death with limited access to palliative care.

Barutta J1, Vollmann J2.

Author information

• 1Institute for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany Department of Medical Humanities, Italian Hospital University, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2Institute for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.

Abstract

Even among advocates of legalising physician-assisted death, many argue that this should be done only once palliative care has become widely available. Meanwhile, according to them, physician-assisted death should be banned. Four arguments are often presented to support this claim, which we call the argument of lack of autonomy, the argument of existing alternatives, the argument of unfair inequalities and the argument of the antagonism between physician-assisted death and palliative care. We argue that although these arguments provide strong reasons to take appropriate measures to guarantee access to good quality palliative care to everyone who needs it, they do not justify a ban on physician-assisted death until we have achieved this goal.