PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1589426
This article is part of the Research TopicEthical and Psychiatric Considerations in Euthanasia and Medically Assisted Suicide (E/PAS)View all 8 articles
Assisted Dying: Considering of Multiple Levels of Suffering and Suicide Prevention in an era of emerging legislations on assisted dying
Provisionally accepted
Mark Joseph Goldblatt1,2*
Dolores Angela Castelli Dransart3,4
Sylvie Lapierre5,6
Margda Waern7,8
Reinhard Lindner9- 1Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
- 2McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, United States
- 3University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland, Delémont, Jura, Switzerland
- 4Haute école de travail social Fribourg (HETS-FR), Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
- 5Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada
- 6Centre De Recherche Informatique De Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- 7Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Västergötland, Sweden
- 8Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden
- 9Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kassel, Kassel, Hesse, Germany
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Access to assisted dying (variously called assisted suicide, euthanasia, and medical aid/assistance in dying) is increasingly available in many countries around the world. Individual suffering in the present and fears for the future, feature prominently in the request for assisted dying, which then affects many people beyond the identified individual, including family and loved ones, the clinical team associated with the dying process and societies. We consider expanding waves of distress, beginning with the subjective intrapsychic suffering of the individual requesting assistance in dying, the interpersonal effect on survivors, and the complex responses in those facing requests for assisted death. The autonomous rights of the individual to the alleviation of suffering are balanced by efforts toward suicide prevention, which are impacted when there are limited options to alleviate the psychosocial and existential suffering of those who express the wish to die.
Keywords: assisted dying, Suicide, Assisted suicide, Medical aid in dying, Suffering
Received: 07 Mar 2025; Accepted: 30 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Goldblatt, Castelli Dransart, Lapierre, Waern and Lindner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mark Joseph Goldblatt, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
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