Understanding Suicide and Assisted Dying – Why Is ‘Design for Death’ Tricky?

Abstract

This chapter will try to address the gap in knowledge of how ‘design’, which is about pragmatic arrangements that can be envisioned and created, can be a space that can facilitate autonomy for end-of-life and assisted dying decisions in the context of ‘sanctity of life’ discourses. Of course, legally binding advanced health care directives (to refuse treatment) are not per se ‘assisted dying’, even if it is an end-of-life decision that is legal in the UK. It is also one that can leave some individuals with no other choice, when medical treatment is stopped, than to starve to death.