There has been a heated debate in the UK over assisted dying and there is a free vote planned in Parliament for the end of next week (i.e., there is no party whip and individual Members of Parliament can vote however they see fit). This is a controversial topic for a range of important ethical, religious and cultural reasons with a wide variation across countries. Even individual interest groups are quite conflicted. For example, the British Medical Association has laid out a helpful set of reasons why the BMA should adopt divergent stances on the subject either in favour of assisted dying or opposed to assisted dying or to remain neutral.
Without ignoring the various ethical, religious and cultural issues, how should we think of this as a policy problem? What sort of evidence would you want to see to inform your decision? What are some of the tradeoffs involved in deciding for or against instituting a policy of assisted dying? How should we try to reconcile this more ‘rational’ sort of analysis against legitimate moral, ethical and cultural considerations?