http://works.bepress.com/mary_shariff/


papers.ssrn.com

Mary J. Shariff1
University of Manitoba, Faculty of Law

Abstract:

This article sets out to explore the scientific pursuit of life extension in the context of current controversies surrounding death, particularly those that involve competent individuals who desire death but are unable to bring it about without the assistance of another individual, that is, assisted suicide.

After a brief introduction in Part I, Part II of this article summarizes the legal position in Canada on assisted death and explores other factors, trends and positions that identify that the debate in Canada is far from being settled and that in reality, the voice to decriminalize assisted suicide (and perhaps also euthanasia) is growing louder. This section also points out that there are inherent conflicts when certain court-identified policies behind maintaining the illegality of assisted death are contrasted with Canada’s health research agenda regarding biotechnology and medicine.

Part II continues with a summary of the law in other jurisdictions where assisted death is legal. In this section, end-of-life global trends are also explored. This includes an examination of attitudinal trends regarding assisted death for “tired of life” and the blurring of the distinction between somatic (physical) and non-somatic (non-physical) suffering. The section concludes that if autonomy is indeed replacing “life” as the most universally accepted legal guidepost, we are steadily moving towards the development of a fairly straightforward “protocol for death”. It should be pointed out that the term “assisted death” is utilized in this article as opposed to the term “assisted dying” because of the changing perceptions of suffering to expand assisted suicide and/or euthanasia services to those who do not suffer from a terminal illness.

Part III provides an overview of the most promising life extension and antiaging research being currently undertaken around the world. This section attempts to organize the research into different streams based on the degree of "technological entanglement" that occurs when an individual pursues a particular longevity intervention and what might ultimately be required in order to bring about death, should death be desired. These streams are then examined in the context of the current legal position on assisted death.

Part IV offers a summary of the discussion and concludes that it is not difficult to anticipate thatthere will be an increasing demand for assisted death services particularly during the lag/transition period for technology translation and exacerbated by the growth of an aging population worldwide. There is currently no coherent body of legal work connecting the areas of aging, state health policy and investment in life extension research with end-of-life law. It is the author’s position that the time for such work to be undertaken is now.

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1 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba.