Understanding the Voices of Disability Advocates in Physician-Assisted Suicide Debates

Abstract

Christians have an obligation to attend to the voices of persons who are crying out that their dignity and very lives are in jeopardy when physician-assisted suicide (PAS) becomes legalized. The following essay begins with an account of the concept of “disability moral psychology,” which elucidates the unique ways persons with disabilities perceive the world, based on their phenomenological experience. The author then explores the disability critique of PAS and the shared social conditions of persons who are chronically disabled and terminally ill. Finally, the author positions the disability critique within Christian moral deliberations on PAS to unearth its significance for Christian ethics. To bear witness to a compassionate God, theological and ethical judgments concerning PAS must seek perspectives from persons who claim that their dignity and even their lives are in jeopardy by the practice.