Assignment overview: This writing assignment invites you to reflect on Emily’s experience and
then decide whether the U.S. should broaden the inclusion criteria for assisted dying to include
intractable psychological suffering. Would you be willing to participate?
Assignment instructions:
In November 2015, the Economist invited subscribers to visit their film site to watch “24 &
Ready to Die,” a narrative about Emily, a young woman who found life unbearable and
requested physician assisted dying under Belgium’s euthanasia law. The release of this
narrative followed an influential article in The New Yorker entitled “The Death Treatment” by
Rachel Aviv (June 22, 2015) critiquing euthanasia as a “treatment” for incurable psychological
suffering. While many are adamantly against any physician involvement in suicide or
euthanasia and others adamant proponents of the same, the majority of us are unsure of what we
ought to think and believe about these as options in a moral society, about what role physicians
and other clinicians should play in counseling and assisting, and about what the criteria should
be, including whether or not incurable psychological suffering is sufficient ground for a request
to end one’s life.
Your paper should answer the following questions:
• Should Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia be allowed for patients who suffer from severe
and incurable distress, including psychological disorders?
• In what way, if any, should clinicians’ beliefs about assisted dying inform what they say
or don’t say when counseling patients who want to control how and when they die?
• What value does a film like “24 & Ready to Die” have in educating the public about
assisted suicide and euthanasia?