TCIVP Spring 2015: Professor Bonnie Steinbock”s Public Lecture
Public Lecture
Topic: Advance Directives, Dementia, and Physician-Assisted Death
Speaker: ProfessorBonnie Steinbock, Vincent O’Leary Professor (professor emeritus),The University at Albany/SUNY
Date and Time: 9/3/2015 (Mon) 4:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Venue: C.K. Tse Room, Chung Chi Library, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Synopsis
Assisted death, whether euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, is available in some countries and in a few states in the U.S. In most places, the eligibility requirements include terminal illness, defined as having no more than six months to live, and contemporary competence. This enables, for example, someone who is dying of cancer to avoid suffering at the end of life. But many people fear living into dementia for years and perhaps decades more than they fear a few months of suffering. The talk addresses the arguments and problems in allowing people while competent to write advance directives asking for assistance in dying once they begin the decline into dementia.
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