By Danny Yarnall
PMC scholar Emily Largent, PhD, JD, RN, was a featured guest on the Good Law/Bad Law legal podcast hosted by University of Pennsylvania law school alumnus Aaron Freiwald. The episode’s topic was “aid in dying” — a set of laws that allow terminally-ill patients who meet specific requirements to take medication to end their own life.
The issue has been thrust into the national spotlight as Maine and New Jersey are set to become the eighth and ninth states to allow aid in dying in the U.S., joining Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, California, Colorado, and Hawaii, as well as the District of Columbia. Largent broke down the ethical and legal debates behind the issue as well as adding her own experience as a nurse and bioethicist in the discussion.
“On one hand, we think the clinicians should really set out the range of options for patients when they’re making decisions about a course of treatment,” Dr. Largent said on the podcast. “…At the same time, I think suggesting hastening death brings it back to being incompatible to the role of traditional medical ethics.”
You can listen to the full episode here.
Dr. Largent was also interviewed in a recent New York Times story on the subject.