Time: 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Location: Hartman House, 243 W. Louther Street
RSVP: By Friday, November 14, 2025 to clarkeforum@dickinson.edu. Space is limited.
Death and dying, aging and illness are natural parts of all living, human life. This is a universally understood and accepted fact. Who is permitted to end one’s life and how to end one’s life is another matter entirely. This salon will interrogate these concerns from various ethical positions, such as: What forms of dying are deemed socially acceptable or unacceptable? Should death be initiated by state institutions like hospitals and prisons? How do these institutions provide a ‘death with dignity’? What does it mean that the death penalty is not considered “cruel and unusual punishment” under the 8th Amendment, yet only eleven states have legalized medical aid in dying (MAID)? Is it logically incompatible to support the death penalty but not support MAID and vice versa? How do the intersections between medically assisted death and the death penalty complicate our ideas about how society values different lives?
This discussion will be facilitated by Ella Layton ‘26 and professor of philosophy, Amy McKiernan.
Required Materials:
- Watch: “Assisted Death & the Value of Life,” from CrashCourse at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IsloHmKvWA(9 min video, closed captioning provided)
- Listen: “The Death Penalty in 2024”, from The Deathly Penalty Information Center’s 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context Podcast at https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/resources/podcasts/discussions-with-dpic/the-death-penalty-in-2024(available to download to a streaming platform of your choice
- Read: “Legal Medical Aid in Dying: The Paradox of Privacy,” Hastings Center at https://www.thehastingscenter.org/legal-medical-aid-in-dying-the-paradox-of-privacy/
Additional Sources:
- Caldwell, Noah, Ailsa Change, and Jolie Myers. “Gasping For Air: Autopsies Reveal Troubling Effects of Lethal.” NPR, September 21, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/793177589/gasping-for-air-autopsies-reveal-troubling-effects-of-lethal-injection
- Death with Dignity. “Current as of October 31, 2025: Death with Dignity in Your State.” Accessed November 7, 2025. https://deathwithdignity.org/states/
- Death Penalty Information Center. “Upcoming Executions, Last updated on October 28, 2025.” Accessed November 7, 2025. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/upcoming-executions.
- Kamm, F.M. “Death and the State: Public Policy of Suicide, Assisted Suicide, and capital Punishment.” In Almost Over: Aging, Dying, Dead. Oxford University Press, 2020 OneDrive Link
- Riley, Sean. “Navigating the new era of assisted suicide and execution drugs.” Journal of Law and Biosciences 4, no. 2 (2017): 424-34. OneDrive Link