b. 1940
Margaret Pabst Battin is an American philosopher and bioethicist, distinguished professor at the University of Utah, widely recognized for her pioneering work on end-of-life ethics, physician-assisted suicide, and the philosophy of suicide. Her scholarship has shaped contemporary debates on autonomy, rational suicide, and aid-in-dying policy across medical and legal contexts.
Authored 'Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die' (2005), a foundational text in end-of-life ethics
Edited 'The Patient as Victim and Vector,' advancing ethics of communicable disease
Developed influential arguments defending rational suicide and physician aid-in-dying
Co-authored empirical-ethical studies on Oregon and Netherlands assisted-dying practices
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah