Enough already about conscientious objection in voluntary assisted dying– what about the conscientious participants?

There is a copious literature on conscientious objection in voluntary assisted dying (VAD), also known as MAID, voluntary euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, or death with dignity. Yet, there has been relative silence in the bioethics literature on what might motivate ‘conscientious participation’ in VAD, whereby clinicians may actively, morally, and purposively support the practice of VAD. VAD has been legally available in the Australian state of Victoria since 2019 and will soon become legal in a second Australian state in 2021, joining an increasing number of international jurisdictions which have legalised the practice of doctors (and in some cases, nurses) providing legal assistance to die, either through the prescribing of a lethal substance for self-administration by the applicant, whose application has met various eligibility and procedural criteria, or through practitioner-administration, where the doctor intravenously supplies the lethal substance to the person (in the case of Victoria, this is permitted only where the applicant is unable to orally administer or digest the lethal substance).