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Expert in medical law and ethics calls for more research into enhancing the dying process

Robin Mackenzie, Director of Medical Law & Ethics at Kent Law School, University of Kent, is to give the opening address at a voluntary euthanasia workshop in London on Monday 13 October.

The workshop, which has been organised by Exit International, Australia's largest voluntary euthanasia information and advocacy organisation, will take place 10am - 1pm at Conway Hall, WC1.

Among its aims, the workshop will explore end-of-life decision-making issues such as: the law, living wills and advance medical directives, mental capacity, dementia and the decision-making process, overseas and drug options including Switzerland, Mexico, Nembutal and the on-going Peaceful Pill project.

Among her opening remarks, Robin Mackenzie will call for more research into possibilities for enhancing how we experience the dying process. She will also suggest that people should have a whole range of choices over how, when and with whom they die.

She says: 'My research into the demedicalisation of dying suggests that there's a groundswell of people wanting to exercise choices in dying beyond euthanasia and palliative care options. Exit International represents one choice for many of the well elderly who may wish to commit suicide before they become terminally ill, using means which provide a painless, peaceful and certain death.

'We all wish to avoid a society where some feel a duty to die and others an obligation to kill. One way of doing this is to find out more about the process of dying and different ways of achieving death without pain, suffering and side effects. Genetic variations mean that we react differently to end of life medications. The pharmacogenetics of the dying process deserves further investigation.

'We also lack an evidence base on how we experience death. Neuro-imaging technologies could provide data which would allow us to orchestrate our dying, as we choose the form of a funeral service. Palliative care is beginning to accept a role for psychoactive substances such as psilocybin as pain relief and spiritual solace. More research is needed into such possibilities.'

Robin Mackenzie is a member of the National Council for Palliative Care Ethics Committee, the South East Research Ethics Committee, the East Kent University Hospital Research and Development Committee, the Steering Group on Domestic Violence for the Family Justice Council, the Kent Family Justice Council and the National Institute of Healthcare and Clinical Excellence Topic Selection Group on Long Term Conditions.

Her latest research includes articles on enhancing death and dying, ethical aspects of research involving the dying, psychoactive substance use, constructions of addiction, reprogenetics, pharmacogenomics, elective amputation and transableism, dismantling the human/nonhuman animal distinction, synthetic biology and the regulation of new biotechnologies.

She is currently working on a book on the demedicalisation of death and enhancing the dying process.

Contact: mediaoffice@kent.ac.uk

Story published at 1:56pm 10 October 2008