Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, edited by Shelton Rubenfeld and Daniel
Sulmasy, is an unusual collection of scholarly essays in that it combines
essays about Nazi euthanasia with others that deal with contemporary PAD
(Physician Aid in Dying) and questions whether there might be a relationship
between the two. This perspective is understandable, given the book’s origin.
The Center for Medicine after the Holocaust, an organization with the mission
“to challenge doctors, nurses, and bioethicists to personally confront the
medical ethics of the Holocaust and to apply that knowledge to contemporary
practice and research,” invited a group of North American and Israeli
palliative care specialists and medical ethicists in 2018 to visit German sites
associated with Third Reich euthanasia programs. The intensive discussions that followed
resulted in this provocative collection of papers.
Dr. Timothy Quill is among the writers
supporting the moral probity and legalization of PAD, while Drs. Diane Meier
and Daniel Sulmasy present strong arguments against the practice.
