Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Daniel Callahan
- Introduction
- 1 Euthanasia and the value of life
- 2 A philosophical case against euthanasia
- 3 The philosophical case against the philosophical case against euthanasia
- 4 The fragile case for euthanasia: a reply to John Harris
- 5 Final thoughts on final acts
- 6 Misunderstanding the case against euthanasia: response to Harris's first reply
- 7 Euthanasia: back to the future
- 8 The case for legalising voluntary euthanasia
- 9 Extracts from the Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics
- 10 Walton, Davies, Boyd and the legalization of euthanasia
- 11 Where there is hope, there is life: a view from the hospice
- 12 Letting vegetative patients die
- 13 A case for sometimes tube-feeding patients in persistent vegetative state
- 14 Dilemmas at life's end: a comparative legal perspective
- 15 Physician-assisted suicide: the last bridge to active voluntary euthanasia
- 16 Euthanasia in the Netherlands: sliding down the slippery slope?
- 17 Advance directives: a legal and ethical analysis
- 18 Theological aspects of euthanasia
- Index
7 - Euthanasia: back to the future
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Daniel Callahan
- Introduction
- 1 Euthanasia and the value of life
- 2 A philosophical case against euthanasia
- 3 The philosophical case against the philosophical case against euthanasia
- 4 The fragile case for euthanasia: a reply to John Harris
- 5 Final thoughts on final acts
- 6 Misunderstanding the case against euthanasia: response to Harris's first reply
- 7 Euthanasia: back to the future
- 8 The case for legalising voluntary euthanasia
- 9 Extracts from the Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics
- 10 Walton, Davies, Boyd and the legalization of euthanasia
- 11 Where there is hope, there is life: a view from the hospice
- 12 Letting vegetative patients die
- 13 A case for sometimes tube-feeding patients in persistent vegetative state
- 14 Dilemmas at life's end: a comparative legal perspective
- 15 Physician-assisted suicide: the last bridge to active voluntary euthanasia
- 16 Euthanasia in the Netherlands: sliding down the slippery slope?
- 17 Advance directives: a legal and ethical analysis
- 18 Theological aspects of euthanasia
- Index
Summary
The Fixed Period (Trollope 1990), Anthony Trollope's science–fiction novel, was published in 1881 but set a century later, on the imaginary island of Britannula, somewhere off New Zealand. The constitution of Britannula, originally a British colony but now a prosperous little republic, provides compulsory euthanasia for all of its citizens on reaching the age of 67½ — Trollope's own age when he wrote the novel. The euthanasia measure, together with the abolition of capital punishment, was freely voted in by the island's first republican parliament. Two arguments carried the day: euthanasia would relieve those who had lived out their ‘fixed period’ of active life from having to suffer the miseries and indignities of old age; and it would relieve their families and the republic of the cost of maintaining them.
The euthanasia measure was passed, however, at a time when none of Britannula's citizens, all settlers, was aged much above 30. Thirty years later, the first of them to reach his allotted span is about to be ‘deposited’ at the ‘College’ where he will enjoy 12 months' preparation for euthanasia. But he is as fit as a fiddle and most unwilling to go — as are the next few citizens in line. The President of the republic, Mr Neverbend, is all his name suggests and insists that the law, which they all agreed to, must be upheld.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Euthanasia ExaminedEthical, Clinical and Legal Perspectives, pp. 72 - 82Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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