Assisted Dying, Discrimination, and Structural Injustice

This book provides an overview of discrimination and structural injustice in assisted dying. It differentiates between direct and indirect discrimination at both the individual and organizational levels, and it pays particular attention to indirect discrimination due to structural factors that have been systemically overlooked. Whereas bioethics literature has traditionally engaged with discrimination on the basis of disability or exclusionary legal barriers, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the cases of individuals who are not legally excluded from access, but are effectively unable to access assisted suicide for other reasons, such as being inhabitants of rural areas with no reasonable access, being prisoners, or, in certain cases, low-income individuals. A conceptual mapping of this kind provides a finer understanding of the overall architecture of the ethical debate surrounding assisted dying and clarifies its moral wrongs. Finally, this book shows the inherent political dimension of assisted dying, where the ethics of assisted dying are not only about principles of autonomy and liberty in death and dying, but also about social justice and equality. The book offers a robust normative claim ensuring fair and equal opportunity of access to assisted dying. This book is of interest to philosophers, policymakers, public health experts, and political scientists interested in the issue of discrimination in the context of assisted dying. 

Author Biography

Yoann Della Croce holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Geneva. He was a visiting researcher at Aarhus University’s Center for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination and was then awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation grant to be a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University’s Faculty of Law, where he is currently. He specializes in bioethics and normative political theory. He has published numerous articles in prestigious journals such as Bioethics, The American Journal of Bioethics, The Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, and Criminal Law and Philosophy, the majority of which concern the ethics, policies, and laws surrounding assisted suicide. He currently serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Bioethics: Neuroscience as a book review editor.