1. Do you believe suicide is morally permissible in general? When terminally ill? Do you think it is permissible to enlist the help of another person (say, a physician) in committing suicide when terminally ill? If not, do you think it is permissible when terminally ill to self-administer a lethal medication provided by a physician?  Do you think there is a moral difference between committing suicide and self-administering a lethal medication? (Section 13.2)

2. What is the distinction between killing and letting die (DB 13H)? Can the two be distinguished morally as well as conceptually (Section 13.8)?  What bearing do the answers to these two questions have on the question whether physician-assisted suicide is morally defensible? 

3. Consider the following news story: “On November 16, J.K. lay helpless in his bed at a nursing home, his brain cells degenerating, unable to speak or to care for himself, kept alive by nutrients flowing through a tube that ran through his nose and into his stomach and he slid inexorably toward death….Meanwhile, in Woody Collum’s view his brother was suffering needlessly…’I looked back at him and just couldn’t go off and leave him like that. I turned around and shot him five times, just as fast as I could shoot him. He never moved.  He was the most peaceful looking guy you’ve ever seen’….According to the police, he said to a nurse, ‘If you would have taken the tube out of his nose he would have starved to death and I wouldn’t have had to do this.’” (New York Times 12/10/81).

What the man did in shooting his brother was illegal.  Do you think it was immoral as well?  How much difference do you believe there is between killing someone in these circumstances (whether by shooting or lethal injection) and letting him/her die (by removing a feeding tube)?  Feeding tubes can now legally be removed in some circumstances.  Do you think that is likely to lead down a slippery slope (TB 13D, Section13.9) to the acceptance of euthanasia?