PSYCHOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE DEBREATHER AND ASSISTED SUICIDE: A COMMENTARY ON OGDEN

This article offers a commentary on the report by Russel Ogden (2010/this issue) on the use of the "debreather'' for suicide assistance by the NuTech (or New Technologies for Self-Deliverance) program. The emergence of NuTech is set within its historical and political context. Nu Tech is criticized for its anarchic and extreme advocacy of self-determination to the neglect of other psychological and ethical considerations (e. g., the individual's emotional state, the mutability of his or her quality of life, and his or her decision-making capacity). Some of the risks of covert, unregulated, assisted death are noted as is a potential shift in healthcare that might diminish interest in the undignified NuTech methods of dying.