Safe, Legal, Rare? Physician-Assisted Suicide and Cultural Change in the Future (IN: Suicide and Euthanasia in Older Adults: a Transcultural Journey, edited by D De Leo)

This chapter is on cultural change & death. Battin attempts to predict how perceptions of physician-assisted suicide might evolve in the future based on how attitudes towards death & dying have evolved in the past. The debate over physician-assisted suicide as it exists presently is summarized. The impact of the effectiveness of pain control measures for the terminally ill (or the lack thereof) on the debate on physician-assisted suicide is discussed. Battin hypothesizes about how the current concern over physician-assisted suicide might transform in the longer term once individuals adopt a more historically informed view. (13 refs.) (NA)