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Mary Warnock. (2008). «A Duty to Die?». Omsorg. Nordisk tidsskrift for palliativ medisin [Care. Nordic Journal of Palliative Medicine], 4: 3–5.

In the capacity of member of this journal's editorial board (editor-in-chief was anesthesiologist and senior physician Stein Husebø), I invited Warnock to write for us in a special issue on assisted dying (i.e., euthanasia and assisted suicide), a job she took on promptly. Below on this page is a copy of her article. (Unfortunately it is nowhere to be found online, so I am glad to be able to post it here on my academic home page for everyone to read.)

Her views sparked a lot of controversy in the UK, and in an interview Warnock also said: “Actually I’ve just written an article called ‘A Duty to Die?’ for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there’s nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself.” (Martin Beckford. «Baroness Warnock: Dementia sufferers may have a 'duty to die'». The Telegraph, 18 September 2008.)

Earlier in 2008 Warnock published, together with oncologist Elisabeth Macdonald, Easeful Death: Is There a Case for Assisted Dying? by Oxford University Press.


See book review by philosopher Onora O’Neill. (2008). «Book. Questions of life and death». The Lancet, 372: 1291–1292. Remarks O'Neill: «Mary has for many years written and thought about assisted dying. Indeed, her recent comments that people with dementia should be helped to die ... have prompted much heated debate.»

Read more about Warnock in Duncan Wilson. (2014). The Making of British Bioethics. Manchester University Press; Open Access.



Furthermore, see Rick Lewis. «Interview. Baroness Mary Warnock». Philosophy Now, 2006, 55: May/June.



Warnock died aged 94, see Brian Pendreigh. «Obituary: Mary Warnock, Baroness dubbed the ‘philosophical plumber to the establishment’». The Scotsman, 3 April 2019.