There is a formal debate taking place.
Only last month I got an invitation from the House of Commons to submit evidence about yet another draft assisted dying bill. (Note to self: Do something about that, instead of twatting about on b3ta.)
Open any edition of a bioethics or medical law journal, and there's a chance that there'll be a paper on euthanasia or assisted dying in there somewhere (I've published four or five, I think, in the past few years myself). If there's a problem with the academic debate, it's that it's so rare for something new to be said. But that hasn't stopped people saying it.
As for the rulings on Nicklinson and "Martin": well, they could hardly have been otherwise. See my predictions here and here, and my initial response to last week's ruling
here.
Roger Crisp (Oxford) takes a different view from me - see this post on the Practical Ethics blog - but I think he's wrong, and I churned out 1500 words yesterday for either that blog or the BMJ one explaining why, before realising that there was plenty in what I was preparing to sustain a(nother) full-length paper.
For the record, I can't see any particular reason why assisted dying should not be legal - and I'd probably go further than most lawmakers, because I see no reason why it should be restricted to the terminally ill and/ or suffering. (I think that to restrict it to the suffering is indefensible, and possibly self-defeating anyway, since the greater the suffering, the more problematic it becomes: see the argument here (.pdf format) if you have institutional access.)
/shameless self-promotion
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:29,
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there was the Falconer report,
I thought that was quite well known.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:30,
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That as well.
It is well known; but it's also bollocks for the most part. (Oh, dear: I'm about to re-engage the self-promotion... See this. Such are the wonders of academic publishing that even I can't access that - but I'll happily send a .doc version to anyone who gazzes me their email.)
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:33,
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I read a bit of it,
I was a little perturbed by how certain people's opinions apparently count as "evidence".
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:39,
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Also I'm not very happy about the way the word "dignity" keeps being thrown about.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:42,
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Totally. Dignity is a horribly misused word.
It's more or less on the index within the profession.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:47,
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