Persons, Agents, and the End-of-life Decisions

Extensive discussions about the nature and value
of personhood, of metaphysical and normative aspects of
becoming a person and ceasing to be one, having been
conducted at the very center of the debates on abortion,
therapeutic human cloning, embryo experimentation, and
so on, for decades have proven notoriously difficult and
their insights disappointingly inconclusive. In the paper I
would like to turn our attention to the other end of the life
span and explore the moral implications of acknowledging
to, or witholding from, someone the status of a person, i.e.
a rational being, for the choice between prolonging her life
and facilitating her death.
The philosophical challenge facing the opponent of
euthanasia can then be put as follows: suppose the
patient's decision to have her life terminated is both
voluntary and prudent; further suppose that neither her
decision nor the carrying out of it by a health professional
violates anyone's rights or fails to discharge anyone's
duties. What else could possibly make the doctor's
compliance with the patient's request wrong and what
other moral objections could possibly be raised against the
proposal to provide a legal protection for such an option for
the terminally-ill patients?