God and End-of-Life Decision Making

This Element considers the medicalization of death, the growth of hospice and palliative care, the possibility of physician-assisted suicide, and the impact that belief in God, the sanctity of life, and the nature of the human person has in these different facets of end-of-life decisions.

This Element explores end-of-life decision-making through a secular and spiritual lens of the human person to examine what difference God makes in these decisions. Both the spiritual and the secular perspectives reveal different goods involved in the decisions people make at the end of life: the goods of autonomy, independence, and freedom compared with the goods of relationality, dependence, and sanctity of life. With the advancements in medical technology, it is possible to keep people alive significantly longer than has ever been possible. But a longer life is not necessarily a good life, nor does it portend a good death. Thus, this Element considers the medicalization of death, the growth of hospice and palliative care, the possibility of physician-assisted suicide, and the impact that belief in God, the sanctity of life, and the nature of the human person has in these different facets of end-of-life decisions.