A public lecture by Associate Professor Meredith Blake, Law School, UWA.
With an ageing population and the medical technology available to prolong life, action and inaction connected with the ending of life in the clinical setting raises confronting issues for modern society. The issues engage the disciplines of religion, philosophy, ethics, medicine, and economics, as well as the law, and therefore represent a complex, multi-layered challenge for legal regulation. One of the problems which the law faces in this context is its struggle to deal with scientific and philosophical concepts from these other disciplines.
When is it in the best interests of a person to cease life-sustaining medical intervention? Should persons be able to request medical assistance in hastening death? In what circumstances can doctors decide not to resuscitate profoundly disabled young children? These are some of the questions which illustrate this challenge. The place which the sanctity of life occupies in society explains why these sorts of questions are troubling, especially when that principle is ‘in conflict’ with both objective and subjective assessments that a life is of unacceptably poor quality. Given the significance of these issues, it is especially important that the law responds coherently and transparently.
These are some of the difficult questions which will be addressed in this lecture.
Cost: Free, but seats are limited. RSVP to
[email protected].
