Decisions about life and death: Assessing the Law Reform Commission and the Presidential Commission Reports

This paper compares and critically comments upon certain aspects of the Canadian Law Reform Commission Report,Euthanasia, Aiding Suicide and Cessation of Treatment, and the United States Presidential Commission Report,Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment. It focuses on their positions on euthanasia and on the general principles, values, and procedures that ought to govern practices of foregoing life-sustaining treatment. The paper first comments on the recent debate over the moral relevance of the killing/letting die distinction, since this issue appears crucial in assessing the rationality of the current, absolute prohibitions of direct killing in medical contexts, embodied both in law and in codes of ethics. This issue bears upon a question in the closing section—whether the withdrawal of foods and fluids is ever morally permissible.