There has only been a little bit of coverage of a neat little study by Mark Hall of Wake Forest University that appears in the current Journal of Medical Ethics, in which he and colleagues report that 58% of Americans would not lose trust in their physician if it were possible for that physician to “help patients die.” I’m not sure whether it is the very sterile formulation of the question,
“Assume for the purpose of this question that euthanasia were legal. If doctors were allowed to help patients die, you would trust your doctor less.”
or the fact that it is testing “euthanasia,” which is the most vague way of describing a complex range of optionss, or whether in fact the majority of Americans would not be nervous if they heard that euthanasia was on the menu.