MARGARET P BATTIN portrait
  • Adjunct Professor, Internal Medicine
  • Distinguished Professor, Philosophy
801-581-6608

Research Keywords

  • suicide
  • religion, ethical issues in religious practice
  • physician-assisted suicide
  • euthanasia
  • contraception, male
  • aid in dying
  • Spinal Cord Injury
  • Population Studies - Developing Countries
  • Population Control
  • Infectious Disease
  • Human Reproduction or Fertility
  • Drugs or Drug Abuse; drugs "across the board"
  • Disability
  • Contraception
  • Aesthetics, puzzles about

Creative Research

  • Brooke Hopkins and Margaret P. Battin, Love Under Trial. Memoir. Other, submitted 10/2013.

Presentations

  • Panel Presentation, the Ethics Committee, American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying, Portland, Oregon. Presentation, Presented, 02/17/2023.
  • The Brin Lecture, John Hopkins School of Medicine, Oncology: "The "Opt-In Conjecture". Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 02/09/2023.
  • "Navigating Ethical Conflicts Between Professional Commitments and Institutional Aid-in-Dying Policies" Coauthors: Jean Abbott, Jeanne Kerwin, Constance Holden, Margaret Pabst Battin, Charles Miller, Thaddeus Pope A significant number of hospices in U.S. jurisdictions where Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) is legal have implemented policies that require nurses to “leave the room” when a patient ingests aid-in-dying medication. Two questions with ethical implications arise from these policies: (1) Is it ethically supportable for a hospice to require that staff leave the room while a patient ingests aid-in-dying medication? and (2) Does this requirement compromise the nurse’s professional commitment to the patient and family? We review the origins of this common policy, as well as nursing codes of ethics and professional organization policy statements as they relate to nursing commitments to patients. We conclude that an institutional policy requiring nurses to “leave the room” while a patient ingests aid-in-dying medication risks violating professional nursing standards, reinforces stigma around MAID, and potentially abandons patients and loved ones at a critical time in their passage toward a desired and legal death. We describe a case that depicts these three potential risks. Even if such policies are not legally prohibited by state MAID statutes, hospice programs and agencies should consider eliminating these policies or at least be transparent about the practice and rationale before accepting potential patients who request MAID. Conference Paper, Refereed, Accepted, 06/24/2022.
  • Working group presentation, Berman Institute of Ethics, Johns Hopkins University. Presentation, Presented, 12/04/2020.
  • Working Group, Hastings Center, "Dementia and the Ethics of Choosing When to Die". Presentation, Presented, 11/12/2020.
  • Grand Rounds lecture, co-presented with Brent Kious MD, psychiatry, "Aid in Dying: Is Somatic Suffering Special?". Presentation, Presented, 02/27/2020.
  • Panelist on ethical issues, National Clinicians Conference on Medical Aid in Dying, Berkeley, CA. Presentation, Presented, 02/14/2020.
  • Plenary Lecture: "Death and Sex: Thought Experiments with Normative Force.” American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, annual meeting, Pittsburgh. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/26/2019.
  • "Thinking All Wrong About How We Die, " Weill Cornell Medical, New York City. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 12/07/2017.
  • Panel talk on psychedelic medicine at the end of life, University of Washington School of Law. Presentation, Presented, 10/27/2017.
  • UTEMED video presentation, "Sex & Consequences". Presentation, Presented, 10/13/2017.
  • Presentation on end-of-life issues, 2ND International Conference on End of Life Law, Ethics, Policy and Practice, Dalhousie Health Law Institute, Canada. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 09/13/2017.
  • International Association for Suicide Prevention, On the relationship between suicide and physician-assisted dying, Kuching, Malaysia. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 07/19/2017.
  • American Association of Suicidology, panel presentation on death with dignity. Presentation, Presented, 04/28/2017.
  • American Philosophical Association Pacific Division, special program: Philosophical Issues in Death with Dignity. Other, Presented, 04/15/2017.
  • Fink Professor, Washburn University; one week; main lecture on historical issues in suicide. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/28/2017.
  • "Euthanasia's Enemies?" World Congress of Eight-to-Die Societies, Amsterdam, The Netherlands . Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 05/13/2016.
  • "Suicide Prevention in an Age of Death With Dignity," American Association of Suicidology, Chicago, Ill. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 03/31/2016.
  • "The Least Worst Death," Johns Hopkins University, Berman Institute of Bioethics. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/23/2015.
  • Scott Crom Visiting Professor, lectures on end of life and male contraception, Beloit College, March 4-6, 2015. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/04/2015.
  • "What Makes a Good Doctor? A Conversation between Margaret Battin and Robin Marantz Henig," The Hastings Center series, New York. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 11/18/2013.
  • "The Least Worst Death: Moral Experience at Life's Edge," Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, Ethics Noon Conference. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 09/18/2013.
  • "Oh Yeah! Male Contraception. At Last!" European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care, meeting in Basel, Switzerland. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 08/14/2013.
  • Commentary on L.W. Sumner, Assisted Death: A Study in Law and Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2011), American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division. Conference Paper, Presented, 03/27/2013.

Languages

  • Ancient Greek (to 1453), basic.
    very rusty.
  • French, basic.
    rusty.
  • German, fluent.
  • Latin, basic.
    very rusty.
  • Spanish, functional.

Geographical Regions of Interest

  • Netherlands
    Extensive research over many years on physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands.

Publications

  • Margaret P. Battin (2023). Daryl Pullman on the Slippery Slope: Simple, Neat, and Wrong. American Journal of Bioethics. Published, 12/2023.
  • Jean Abbott & Jean Abbott, Jeanne Kerwin, Constance Holden, Margaret Pabst Battin, Charles Miller, and Thaddeus Mason Pope (2023). Hospice Nurse Ethics and Institutional Policies Toward Medical Aid in Dying, . American Journal of Nursing. Vol. 123, 37-43. Published, 06/2023.
  • Margaret P. Battin (2022). Sex and the Planet: What Opt-In Reproduction Could Do for the Globe . MIT Press. Accepted, 10/04/2022.
  • Lonny Shavelson & Thaddeus Pope, Margaret Pabst Battin, Alicia Ouellette, Benzi Kluger (2022). Neurologic Diseases and Medical Aid in Dying: Aid-in-Dying Laws Create an Underclass of Patients Based on Disability. American Journal of Bioethics. Accepted, 06/23/2022.
  • Brent Michael Kious, , J. Michael Bostwick, Lewis M. Cohen, Elizabeth Morrison, Thomas Strouse & Stuart Youngner (2021). Let's Ask the Right Questions About Medical Aid in Dying. Psychiatric Times. Published, 08/11/2021.
  • Ty-Juan Markham & Margaret P. Battin (2021). "Renegade Acts of Compassion" and the Challenges of VSED, in Hastening Death by Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking. Oxford University Press. Published, 07/2021.
  • Margaret Pabst Battin & Brent M. Kious (2021). Ending One's Life in Advance. Hastings Center Report. Vol. 51:3, 37-47. Published, 06/2021.
  • Margaret Pabst Battin, Leslie P. Francis, Jay A. Jacobson & Charles B. Smith (2021). The Patient as Victim and Vector: Ethics and Infectious Disease, Reissue with New Preface on Covid-19. Oxford University Press. Published, 01/12/2021.
  • Margaret Pabst Battin (2020). Selbsttötung und Rechte, Sterbehilfe und Ärtztlich Beihilfe zum Suizid, Grundlage Texte . Verlag Karl Alber. Published, 12/30/2020.
  • Brent M. Kious & Margaret P. Battin (2019). Physician Aid-in-Dying and Suicide Prevention in Psychiatry: A Moral Crisis?. American Journal of Bioethics. Vol. 19, 29-39. Published, 09/2019.
  • Margaret P. Battin (2018). The Development of the AAS Statement on "Suicide" and "Physician Aid in Dying". Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. Published, 03/26/2018.
  • Margaret P. Battin, Dominick A. DellaSala, ed. & Michael I. Goldstein, ed. (2018). Entry: Population: Growth, Decline, and Control. (pp. 319-330). Vol. 4. Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene, Elsevier. Published, 01/2018.
  • Margaret P. Battin (2018). Could Suicide Really be a Fundamental Human Right? A Triple Threat, in Assisted Death and Human Dignity, Sebastian Muders, ed.. (pp. 199-217). Oxford University Press. Published, 01/01/2018.
  • Marije Brouwer, Christopher Kaczor, Margaret P. Battin, Els Maeckelberghe, John D. Lantos, Eduard Verhagen. Ethics Rounds: If adult euthanasia is legal, should pediatric euthanasia be legal as well? Pediatrics, forthcoming 2017. Accepted, 04/2017.
  • Battin MP, Edwards JH & Freedman RA (2016). Heart Transplantation on a Desert Island? Self-Sacrifice and Slippery Slopes. The Annals of thoracic surgery. Vol. 102, 1783-1784. Published, 11/01/2016.
  • Review, with Brent M. Kious, of J. David Velleman, Beyond Price: Essays on Birth and Death (Open Book Publishers 2015), in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, published online February/March 2016. Published, 02/2016.
  • Timothy Quill and Margaret P. Battin, entry “Responding to Requests for Physician Aid in Dying,” UpToDate 2015. [online reference service for physicians]. Published, 09/18/2015.
  • The Ethics of Suicide: Historical Sources. Comprehensive collection of historical sources concerning issues in suicide. Oxford University Press in partnership with J. Willard Marriot Library at the University of Utah for associated online Digital Archive. Received Honorable Mention, PROSE Award (American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence), Category Philosophy, 2016. Published, 09/2015.
    http://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu
  • Perspective: “Thinking All Wrong about How You Die,” Hastings Center Report, July-August, 2015. (invited short piece). Published, 08/2015.
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/8osxxgvc9hpz0vf/PASHasti...
  • “Population Growth and Decline: Issues of Justice,” Routledge Companion to Bioethics, ed. John Arras, Rebecca Kukla, Elizabeth Fenton. New York and London: Routledge 2015, pp. 403-416. Published, 01/2015.
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/r5el6uwbtxw11qt/sexqPOPU...
  • "The Ethics of Suicide: Philosophical and Religious Perspectives," in David Lester and James R. Rogers, eds., Suicide: A Global Issue. Volume 1, pp. 55-64. Santa Barbara, CA; Praeger, 2013. Published, 11/2013.
  • Margaret P. Battin, "Terminal sedation: Recasting a metaphor as the ars moriendi changes," in Sigrdi Sterckx, Kasper Raus, and Freddy Mortier, eds., Continuous Sedation at the End of Life. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 240-249. Published, 09/2013.
  • Entry, “Bioethics,” International Encyclopedia of Ethics, 4th edition, Wiley-Blackwell, in press. Accepted, 03/28/2012.