Gender,Pain,and Doctor Involvement: High School Student Attitudes Toward Doctor-Assisted Suicide

Abstract

The present study concentrates on the attitudes of high school students toward active doctor-assisted suicide as described in hypothetical doctor-patient scenarios, orthogonally manipulating doctor's reaction to patient's wishes to end his/her life (whether discussed, accepted or encouraged), presence of patient's physical pain, presence of patient's emotional pain, and the gender of the hypothetical patient. Doctor-assisted suicides thoroughly discussed with the patient are judged to be more moral, acceptable, and “legal” than assisted suicides that are simply accepted by the doctor or actively encouraged by him. Significantly, this is not a distinction that is relevant in the eyes of the law. Further, the presence of both physical and emotional pain on the part of the patient make the patient death more acceptable in the eyes of high school students. This latter effect is striking, given the result of the Wooddell and Kaplan (1999–2000) study showing that patient depression tends to weaken acceptability of death. Finally, respondents, both male and female, tend to view deaths of patients of the opposite gender as more acceptable than patients of the same gender.