Hastings Cent Rep. 2022 Sep;52(5):15-23. doi: 10.1002/hast.1417.
Many people are afraid they will, as they age or fall ill, become burdens to others. Some who fear this say they would be willing to hasten their own deaths-engaging in self-sacrifice through suicide, assisted suicide, or euthanasia-to avoid it. Still, some bioethicists and other critics of medical aid in dying reject the idea that fear of being a burden can be a good reason for self-sacrifice. They argue that dependency is nearly universal, emphasize that caregiving is a valuable pursuit, and raise concerns about the impact of aid-in-dying policies on vulnerable groups. After defining what it is to be a burden, articulating why being a burden is morally significant, and, crucially, distinguishing burdensomeness from what I call "mere dependency," I defend the intuition that self-sacrifice can be justified by the desire to avoid being a burden and by the concern for the well-being of one's caregivers that this choice implies.
许多人担心，随着年龄的增长或生病，他们会成为他人的负担。一些担心这种情况的人表示，他们愿意通过自杀、协助自杀或安乐死来加速自己的死亡，以避免这种情况。然而，一些生命伦理学家和其他反对医疗辅助死亡的人反对将害怕成为负担作为自我牺牲的一个好理由。他们认为依赖几乎是普遍存在的，强调护理是一种有价值的追求，并对临终关怀政策对弱势群体的影响表示担忧。在定义了成为负担的含义、阐述了为什么成为负担在道德上是有意义的，并从根本上区分了负担与我所说的“仅仅是依赖”之后，我为这样一种直觉辩护，即避免成为负担的愿望和对照顾者福祉的关注可以证明自我牺牲是合理的。
