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Barilan YM. Rethinking the withholding/withdrawing distinction: the cultural construction of "life-support" and the framing of end-of-life decisions. Multidiscip Respir Med. 2015;10(1):10doi: 10.1186/s40248-015-0004-5.
Barilan, Y. M. (2015). Rethinking the withholding/withdrawing distinction: the cultural construction of "life-support" and the framing of end-of-life decisions. Multidisciplinary respiratory medicine, 10(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40248-015-0004-5
Barilan, Yechiel M. "Rethinking the withholding/withdrawing distinction: the cultural construction of "life-support" and the framing of end-of-life decisions." Multidisciplinary respiratory medicine vol. 10,1 (2015): 10. doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40248-015-0004-5
Barilan YM. Rethinking the withholding/withdrawing distinction: the cultural construction of "life-support" and the framing of end-of-life decisions. Multidiscip Respir Med. 2015 Mar 17;10(1):10. doi: 10.1186/s40248-015-0004-5. eCollection 2015. PMID: 25949813; PMCID: PMC4422120.
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Multidiscip Respir Med. 2015 Mar 17;10(1):10. doi: 10.1186/s40248-015-0004-5. eCollection 2015.

Rethinking the withholding/withdrawing distinction: the cultural construction of "life-support" and the framing of end-of-life decisions.

Multidisciplinary respiratory medicine

Yechiel M Barilan

Affiliations

  1. Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

PMID: 25949813 PMCID: PMC4422120 DOI: 10.1186/s40248-015-0004-5

Abstract

This paper is a theoretical and empirically informed examination of the naturalist distinction between withholding and withdrawing life-support. Drawing on the history of mechanical ventilation and on a recent Israeli law containing a novel approach to disconnecting life-support at the end of life, it is argued that the design of machines predicates the division line between "active" and "passive" interventions, and that the distinction itself might be morally self-defeating. Informed by insights from moral psychology, behavioral economics and philosophies of technology, the paper warns against the placement of this old distinction at the heart of the moral and legal regulation of life-support at the end of life.

Keywords: End-of-life; Life-support; Technology-philosophy of; Withdrawing; Withholding

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