Ethics of robotic assisted dying

Ryan Tonkens

pp. 207-221

in: Simon van Rysewyk, Matthijs Pontier (eds), Machine medical ethics, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce and critically assess the prospect of "robotic assisted dying", i.e., the use of (semi-) autonomous robots for the purpose of assisting willing terminally ill patients in dying, in the medical context. The central conclusion reached here is this: Assuming that physician-assisted suicide is morally permissible, if we develop robots to serve as human caregivers in medical contexts ("carebots"), and given that assistance in dying is sometimes an important aspect of geriatric care, it is morally permissible for such robots to be able to facilitate and assist in the dying of those patients, in those contexts, at the eligible patient's sound request. At least, there is nothing inherent in this prospect that introduces moral problems beyond those attached to the development and use of geriatric carebots or (human) physician-assisted suicide in general. One major benefit of robotic assisted dying is that the robot would always assist those consenting patients that are genuinely eligible, and thus such patients would not be at the mercy of a willing physician clause in order to have some control over the timing and manner of their death (something that routinely usurps the effectiveness of human physician-assisted suicide in practice).