Margaret P. Battin, M.F.A., Ph. D.

Distinguished Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Utah
Adjunct Professor, Division of Medical Ethics and Humanities
Department of Internal Medicine
University of Utah School of Medicine

Correspondence: Department of Philosophy 260 Central Campus Dr., Room 341 University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9156 Phone: (801) 581-6608, FAX: (801) 585-5195 Email: battin@utah.edu

Biosketch

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Margaret Pabst Battin is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Medical Ethics, at the University of Utah.  She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, and holds an M.F.A. in fiction-writing and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California at Irvine.  The author of prize-winning short stories and recipient of the University of Utah’s Distinguished Research Award, she has authored, edited, or co-edited fifteen books, among them a study of philosophical issues in suicide; a scholarly edition of John Donne’s Biathanatos; a collection on age-rationing of medical care; Puzzles About Art, a volume of case-puzzles in aesthetics; a text on professional ethics;  Ethics in the Sanctuary, a study of ethical issues in organized religion; and a collection of her essays on end-of-life issues, entitled The Least Worst Death.  She has also been engaged in research on active euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands.  She has also published Ethical Issues in Suicide, trade-titled The Death Debate, as well as several co-edited  or co-authored collections, including Drug Use in Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide;  Physician-Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate; Praying for a Cure, a jointly authored volume on the ethics of religious refusal of medical treatment; and Medicine and Social Justice.   She is currently at work on a historical sourcebook on ethical issues in suicide, a book on world population growth and reproductive rights, and two multiauthored projects, one on ethics and infectious disease and one  on drugs and justice.   In 2000, she was a co-recipient of the Rosenblatt Prize, the University of Utah’s most prestigious award, and was named Distinguished Honors Professor in 2002-03.   A second collection of her essays (and fiction) on end-of-life issues, entitled Ending Life, was published in spring 2005 by Oxford University Press. 

Education / Training

• Bryn Mawr College, B.A., magna cum laude with Honors in Philosophy, 1963, including University of Munich, 1961-2
• University of California/Irvine, M.F.A. (Fiction Writing), 1973
• University of California/Irvine, Ph.D. (Philosophy), 1976

Honors / Awards since 2000

• Peggy Battin, M.F.A., Ph.D.; Leslie Francis, J.D., Ph.D.; Jay Jacobson, M.D. National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Seminar, July 2003
• Distinguished Honors Professor, 2002-03
• Named Distinguished Professor, University of Utah, 2000
• Rosenblatt Prize, University of Utah, 2000

Present Positions / Appointments

• Distinguished Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Utah
• Adjunct Professor, Division of Medical Ethics, Department of Internal Medicine, LDS Hospital and University of Utah School of Medicine
• Planned Parenthood Federation of America National Medical Board, 2002-

Interests

• End-of-Life issues
• Reproduction
• Infectious Diseases
• Professional Ethics

Selected Publications since 2004

Books

• Ethics and Infectious Disease, edited by Michael J. Selgelid, Margaret P. Battin, and Charles B. Smith. Expanded "journal-book" based on special issue of Bioethics, Blackwell, 2006.
• Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005."
• Ethics and Infectious Disease, edited by Michael J. Selgelid and Margaret P. Battin, Special issue of Bioethics, Vol. 19, no. 4, August 2005.
• The Case for Physician-Assisted Dying: The Right to Excellent End-of-Life Care and Patient Choice, Timothy Quill and Margaret P. Battin, eds., Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.

Articles

"July 4, 1826: Explaining the Same-Day Deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson," Historically Speaking (The Bulletin of the Historical Society), vol. 6, no. 6, July/August 2005.
Pearlman RA, Hsu C, Starks H, Back AL, Gordon JR, Bharucha A, Koenig BA, Battin MP. Motivations for physician-assisted suicide: Patient and family voices. J Gen Int Med, 2005; 20(3):234-39.The Ethics of Self-Sacrifice: What’s Wrong with Suicide Bombing? "Archives of Suicide Research, vol. 8(1):29-36 (2004).
• "On Conjectures About Extra Long Life: The Central Problematic Assumption. Comment on Alex Capron." In H. Aaron and W. Schwartz, Coping With Methuselah, Washington DC: BrookingsInstitution Press, 2004.
• "Religion and Psychiatry," by Brooke Hopkins and Margaret P. Battin, in Jennifer Radden, ed., The Philosophy of Psychiatry, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 312-326.
• Smith CB, Battin MP, Jacobson JA, Francis LP, Botkin J, Asplund EP, Domek GJ, Hawkins B, "Are There Characteristics of Infectious Diseases that Raise Special Ethical Issues? Journal of Developing World Bioethics, 4:1(May 2004).
• Margaret P. Battin and Ryan Spellecy, "What Kind of Freedom? Szasz’s Misleading Perception of Physician-Assisted Suicide," in Jeffrey A. Schaler, ed., Szasz Under Fire: The Psychiatric Abolitionist Faces His Critics. Open Court, 2004, pp. 277-290.

Selected Presentations since 2004

• "The Patient as Victim and Vector: Ethics in Endemic, Epidemic, and Pandemic Infectious Disease," Center for the Study of Bioethics,  The Pierson Lecture, Medical College of

  Wisconsin, November 9, 2006.
• ASBH: "Compensated Constraint," October 28, 2006, Denver
• "The Patient as Victim and Vector: The Challenge of Infectious Disease," plenary
• lecture, Society for Applied Philosophy Annual Conference on "The Philosophy of Public Health," June 30-June 2, 2006, Manchester, UK 
• End-of-life issues, lecture to program at Faculty of Law, University of Groningen, Netherlands, November 25, 1005.
• Irish Association of Suicidology, Armagh, Ireland Oct. 6, 2005, "The Ethics of Suicide and Physician-Assisted Suicide."
• "Rapid Tests for Infectious Disease—A Thought Experiment," meetings of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Healthcare (ESPMH), Barcelona, Spain, August 25, 2005.
• Facultad LatinoAmerica de Sciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Fogarty program, Buenos Aires, Argentina, three talks, on physician-assisted dying, on research ethics in physician-assisted dying, and on ethical issues in reproduction (all in Spanish), May 19-20, 2005.
• "The Morality of Conception for Sibling Rescue: Comments on Stephen Munzer’s ‘Motives, Conditional Intentions, and Abortion," APA Pacific Division, March, 2005.
• American Bar Association midyear meeting, Special Committee on Bioethics, Feb. 12, 2005, joint presentation with Leslie Francis on death with dignity.
• Western Regional Bioethics Conference, Arizona State University, Feb. 25, 2005. Keynote address, "Ethical Issues in Physician-Assisted Suicide."
• Sydney, Australia: FAB—plenary lecture Nov. 8, 2004,Indigenous Peoples and the risks of PAS; ABA (Australasian Bioethics Association) plenary lecture Nov. 13, 2004, Sex & Consequences
• Melbourne, Australia— Nov. 15, 2004, VESV (Voluntary Euthanasia Society of Victoria) lecture: "Ten Myths about Physician-Assisted Suicide (with emphasis on Oregon)."
• American Association of Suicidology, poster presentation, "Physician-assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Oregon and the Netherlands: The Impact on Vulnerable Groups," Miami, April 16, 2004

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