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categories: ["society", "longevity"]categories: ["society", "longevity"]tags: ["bioethics", "law", "assisted dying", "autonomy", "aging", "mortality"]tags: ["bioethics", "law", "assisted dying", "autonomy", "aging", "mortality"]summary: "How the law and ethics of assisted dying interact with radical life extension, and whether an indefinitely extendable life could still be voluntarily ended."summary: "How the law and ethics of assisted dying interact with radical life extension, and whether an indefinitely extendable life could still be voluntarily ended."updated: "2026-07-27"updated: "2026-08-23"issues: ["The 1984 governor's duty-to-die remark is quoted without naming him or citing a source", "The early-1990s California cryonics case is described without naming it or citing the ruling"]issues: ["The 1984 governor's duty-to-die remark is quoted without naming him or citing a source"]------ ```infobox```infoboxlines 33–39 → 33–3918 unchanged lines not shown
The US Supreme Court set out both halves in the 1990s: a 1990 case established a constitutionally protected liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment, and two 1997 decisions held that there is no corresponding constitutional right to assistance in suicide, leaving the question to the states. Oregon's statute, in force from 1997, permits a physician to prescribe lethal medication to a terminally ill adult who self-administers it; roughly a dozen US jurisdictions now have comparable laws.The US Supreme Court set out both halves in the 1990s: a 1990 case established a constitutionally protected liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment, and two 1997 decisions held that there is no corresponding constitutional right to assistance in suicide, leaving the question to the states. Oregon's statute, in force from 1997, permits a physician to prescribe lethal medication to a terminally ill adult who self-administers it; roughly a dozen US jurisdictions now have comparable laws. The Netherlands and Belgium legalised physician-administered euthanasia in 2002 under conditions of unbearable suffering without prospect of improvement, which need not be terminal. Switzerland has permitted assisted suicide since long before the modern debate, through a penal-code provision that criminalises assistance only when the motive is selfish — an arrangement that made it the destination for cross-border cases. Canada's regime began with a 2015 constitutional ruling, was legislated in 2016 for those whose death was reasonably foreseeable, and was extended in 2021 to people with grievous and irremediable conditions who are not dying; eligibility on the basis of mental illness alone has been postponed repeatedly. The United Kingdom's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed the House of Commons in 2025 and was under consideration in the Lords; this is a fast-moving area and the position may have changed since.The Netherlands and Belgium legalised physician-administered euthanasia in 2002 under conditions of unbearable suffering without prospect of improvement, which need not be terminal. Switzerland has permitted assisted suicide since long before the modern debate, through a penal-code provision that criminalises assistance only when the motive is selfish — an arrangement that made it the destination for cross-border cases. Canada's regime began with a 2015 constitutional ruling, was legislated in 2016 for those whose death was reasonably foreseeable, and was extended in 2021 to people with grievous and irremediable conditions who are not dying. People whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness remain excluded, and the exclusion has been extended twice by statute, most recently to March 2027.[^justice2024] The United Kingdom's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed the House of Commons in June 2025, then ran out of time in the House of Lords and fell when the parliamentary session ended, private members' bills being unable to carry over; a successor bill was introduced in the following session under a different sponsor.[^ifg2026] This is a fast-moving area and the position may have changed since. > [!note] What "right to die" usually means> [!note] What "right to die" usually means> In almost all existing law it means a right against interference — to refuse treatment, or to be assisted without the assistant being prosecuted. It is not a right to be provided with death on request, and no jurisdiction treats it as one.> In almost all existing law it means a right against interference — to refuse treatment, or to be assisted without the assistant being prosecuted. It is not a right to be provided with death on request, and no jurisdiction treats it as one.lines 42–48 → 42–482 unchanged lines not shown
Every permissive regime rests on a criterion: terminal illness, unbearable suffering, or a grievous and irremediable condition. Each has proved harder to hold than expected.Every permissive regime rests on a criterion: terminal illness, unbearable suffering, or a grievous and irremediable condition. Each has proved harder to hold than expected. Terminal illness requires a prognosis, and prognosis is unreliable at the margins. Unbearable suffering is subjective by construction, which is why the Dutch regime relies on physician assessment rather than an objective test. And any criterion defined by the absence of a remedy is unstable in a period of medical advance: a condition that is irremediable in 2026 may not be in 2036, which means the same person's eligibility changes without their condition changing.Terminal illness requires a prognosis, and prognosis is unreliable at the margins. Unbearable suffering is subjective by construction, which is why the Dutch regime relies on physician assessment rather than an objective test. And any criterion defined by the absence of a remedy is unstable in a period of medical advance: a condition that is irremediable today may not be in a decade, which means the same person's eligibility changes without their condition changing. This is the first point of contact with longevity research. If the frailty and multimorbidity that drive many requests are treatable — the claim behind the [[geroscience-hypothesis]] — then a person requesting assistance because their body is failing is requesting it for a remediable condition. Whether that should affect eligibility is a question no jurisdiction has faced. It becomes acute only if interventions extend [[healthspan]] rather than lifespan alone; a therapy that adds years of dependency would strengthen the case for assisted dying rather than weaken it.This is the first point of contact with longevity research. If the frailty and multimorbidity that drive many requests are treatable — the claim behind the [[geroscience-hypothesis]] — then a person requesting assistance because their body is failing is requesting it for a remediable condition. Whether that should affect eligibility is a question no jurisdiction has faced. It becomes acute only if interventions extend [[healthspan]] rather than lifespan alone; a therapy that adds years of dependency would strengthen the case for assisted dying rather than weaken it. lines 71–77 → 71–7722 unchanged lines not shown
## Cryonics and the timing of death## Cryonics and the timing of death [[cryonics]] creates a live legal version of the problem. Preservation quality depends on beginning quickly after circulation stops, and legal death is required before any procedure can begin — so the process starts at the worst possible moment for the outcome its subscribers want. A California case in the early 1990s tested this directly: a man with a terminal brain tumour sought a court order permitting cryopreservation before his brain deteriorated, and was refused. Organisations such as [[alcor]] therefore operate standby procedures designed to compress the interval, without ever crossing the line the law draws.[[cryonics]] creates a live legal version of the problem. Preservation quality depends on beginning quickly after circulation stops, and legal death is required before any procedure can begin — so the process starts at the worst possible moment for the outcome its subscribers want. A California case tested this directly. Thomas Donaldson, who had an inoperable brain tumour, sought a declaration that he had a constitutional right to cryogenic suspension before death and that those assisting him could not be prosecuted; the Court of Appeal refused in 1992, holding that the state's interest in preventing assisted suicide outweighed his claim and that refusing treatment and being helped to die are not the same act.[^donaldson1992] Organisations such as [[alcor]] therefore operate standby procedures designed to compress the interval, without ever crossing the line the law draws. Jurisdictions that permit assisted dying create a route that circumvents this, and a small number of cases have reportedly combined the two. It is the only context in which the right to die and the pursuit of indefinite life are not opposed but operationally connected, and neither the assisted-dying literature nor the [[brain-preservation]] literature has addressed what standards should apply.Jurisdictions that permit assisted dying create a route that circumvents this, and a small number of cases have reportedly combined the two. It is the only context in which the right to die and the pursuit of indefinite life are not opposed but operationally connected, and neither the assisted-dying literature nor the [[brain-preservation]] literature has addressed what standards should apply. lines 97–100 → 97–10319 unchanged lines not shown
[^williams1973]: `book` Williams, B. "The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality." In *Problems of the Self*, Cambridge University Press, 1973.[^williams1973]: `book` Williams, B. "The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality." In *Problems of the Self*, Cambridge University Press, 1973.[^fischer1994]: `paper` Fischer, J.M. "Why Immortality Is Not So Bad." *International Journal of Philosophical Studies*, 1994.[^fischer1994]: `paper` Fischer, J.M. "Why Immortality Is Not So Bad." *International Journal of Philosophical Studies*, 1994.[^bostrom2005]: `paper` Bostrom, N. "The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant." *Journal of Medical Ethics*, 2005.[^bostrom2005]: `paper` Bostrom, N. "The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant." *Journal of Medical Ethics*, 2005.[^justice2024]: `law` Department of Justice Canada. *Canada's medical assistance in dying (MAID) law.* Government of Canada, last modified July 2024. {The government's account of the statute rather than the statute itself; it records the two postponements and gives no indication of what happens at the March 2027 date.}[^ifg2026]: `report` McKee, R. "What has happened to the assisted dying bill?" Institute for Government, updated 19 June 2026. {A procedural explainer tracking the bill's stages and its failure to complete passage; it takes no position on assisted dying itself.}[^donaldson1992]: `law` *Donaldson v. Lungren*, 2 Cal. App. 4th 1614, California Court of Appeal, Second District, decided 29 January 1992. {The court decided the constitutional question only, and made no finding about whether cryopreservation preserves anything.} removed, struck through added, underlinedLine numbers count the serialised markdown of each revision, frontmatter included.
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