Whose Choice? A Qualitative Inquiry into Professionals' Moral Positions on Euthanasia in Belgium.

Abstract

Death, which was once accepted as an incalculable otherworld journey initiated by the cessation of biological functions, became an object of socio-political regulation in late modernity. Euthanasia, a form of managing death and dying, has grown in popularity with accompanying controversy. What remains under-explored, however, are conceptions of selfhood animating different framings in moral and ethical debates around euthanasia from professional perspectives. Drawing on 20 interviews with physicians and other key professionals in the euthanasia field in Belgium, this study finds that moral division among participants lies in different attributes of selfhood related to euthanasia, which emphasize autonomous, social, or embodied aspects. This paper demonstrates that the diminishing role of religion in appeasing existential anxiety about death, combined with an increasing emphasis on choice as the basis of selfhood, facilitates the contemporary desire to control one's own demise.