Distinguishing Deference from Deferment: Assisted Suicide Is the Wrong Response

In this article, I examine the practice of assisted suicide. I aim to do so by, first, briefly sketching a description of the current context with a particular focus on Canadian law and the prominent role that autonomy plays there. I point to resources from within the Roman Catholic tradition that serve as a counterbalance to the focus on autonomy. Second, given the prevalence of appeals to autonomy in the lives of practitioners and patients and how claims of autonomy influence considerations associated with assisted suicide, I describe the account of autonomy that is operative in these discussions and sketch an account of deference that should replace the commonplace account of autonomy. Finally, having considered popular appeals to medical assistance in dying, I ask whether cases of assisted suicide are best thought of as nonmedical cases and what appeals to traditions of thought outside of explicitly medical professions have to add to this discussion.