Administrer les demandes de mort : comparaison de l'aide médicale à mourir (Québec) et de l'assistance au suicide (Canton de Vaud)
This thesis is about the administration of death requests from two controversial modalities, medical aid in dying in Quebec (Canada) and assisted suicide in the canton of Vaud (Switzerland). In Quebec, assistance in dying is a public medical service, while in the canton of Vaud it is a private act tolerated by the state and implemented by associations. According to how the assistance to dying question is raised in both contexts, different answers are given which reflect different forms of concern for this practice. I suggest that these two contrasting regimes of assistance in dying can be understood in the same analytical movement despite their differences. From a comparative and ethnographic perspective, this thesis explores how the four conditions that enable the possibility of assistance in dying that I identify are put into practice at different scales, from public debates to the experiences of people who are directly involved. The research is based on four years of investigation relying on interviews, observations, a press review, and analyses of documentary sources. This thesis concludes that the assistance in dying regimes of Quebec and Vaud have practical moral maxims used by the people involved in common. These maxims, which emerge in everyday words and institutional arrangements, frame the trouble that arises from the confrontation with assistance in dying and meet the four enabling conditions identified. This ethics in action circumscribes the narrow space that the people involved must navigate to make assistance in dying possible. Finally, I examine what awaits the actors, as well as the society, when these conditions are not met. More generally, comparing the administration of death requests in these two contrasting regimes leads to questioning the boundaries of medicine, law and life itself. Analyzing these enabling conditions and the bounds of the trouble contributes to the reflections on the implementation of rights, including the right to freedom of conscience.
Suicide assisté Controverses Canada Medical aid in dying Assisted suicide Euthanasia End of life Sociology of public action Controversies Ethics in action Freedom of conscience Quebec Switzerland