Voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED) to hasten death: may clinicians legally support patients to VSED?

• Main Author: Thaddeus Mason Pope
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2017-10-01
• Series: BMC Medicine
• Subjects: Voluntarily stopping eating and drinking; Medical aid in dying; Assisted suicide; Suicide; Law; End-of-life
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12916-017-0951-0

Abstract Jox and colleagues recently compared and contrasted two leading end-of-life exit options, namely voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED) and medical aid in dying (MAID). The authors argue that policymakers and medical societies should consider VSED and MAID in a uniform and consistent manner given that clinician participation in both constitutes assisted suicide. This is a very controversial topic. Herein, it is questioned whether there really is disparate consideration of VSED and MAID and whether it is justified, bearing in mind that VSED is not assisted suicide. Please see related article: http://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-017-0950-1 .