Writing One’s Own Story, Until the Very Last Page: An Ethical Examination of an Autonomy-Only Approach to Voluntary Assisted Dying

Given the recent Dutch ‘Completed Life proposal’ to allow voluntary assisted dying (VAD) for people who are not suffering from a severe illness, this thesis explores how an autonomy-only approach to VAD would intersect with populations who have a complex or atypical relationship with autonomy as it is usually conceived of. My aim is to examine the ethical implications of abandoning a suffering requirement in VAD policy and focusing entirely on autonomy as the primary access criterion. For this, I consider various circumstances that may interfere with autonomy: Childhood, neurological damage, grief, poverty, and incarceration.