Euthanasia

“The origins of medical euthanasia, I will argue, lie in a movement of dying from the domain of religion, through that of medicine and finally into the jurisdiction of positive law and public policy. . . . only in the nineteenth century that treatment of the dying, as such, became a medical concern and medically regulated. . . . a new ethic developed in which the physician was expected to remain present at the deathbed. The law of the deathbed had shifted from religion to medical. . . Euthanasia now stood for the new task of the medical profession – to assist dying patients in their last hours, short of hastening death” (Lavi, Intro).