Withdrawing life sustaining care: Making sense of disagreement among experts

This Café Scientifique brings together experts in ethics that disagree about who should decide when to withdraw life-sustaining care, in order to explore the meaning of ethics "expertise" and the contribution of bioethics research to public life. The difficult question about who should decide when to withdraw care has come to the forefront of societal attention in the recent Rasouli case in Ontario, which has been widely covered in the media and is expected to be heard by the Supreme Court this year. Experts have variously held that patients (or their families) should decide when to withdraw care, according to their own values; that physicians should decide, according to medical criteria; or that society should decide, according to national health spending priorities. Disagreement among experts on this important issue illustrates the unique nature of ethical expertise and helps the public to think critically about the role of ethics in public policy.