Exploring a right to physician-assisted suicide in Singapore

The question of whether a person should have a right to physician-assisted suicide (PAS) has provoked vigorous debates in many Western countries in the courts, in legislatures, in referenda, and in academic literature. As with human rights discourses generally, discourses over PAS cannot be complete or coherent if non-Western countries remain on the periphery. With its common law legal system, particular outlook on human rights, legislation on advance medical directive, and prohibition of attempted suicide and assisted suicide, Singapore presents a valuable case study on whether a right to PAS may be derived from the Singapore Constitution and on the possibilities, merits, and problems that recognition of a right to PAS may present. This article adopts an in-principle inquiry, with reference to case law in England and Wales, Canada, and the USA, as to whether a person has, or should have, a right to PAS in Singapore in accordance with the constitutional guarantee of the liberty of the person.