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The answer to this question depends on whether the corpse is protected by rights, whether it should be protected by rights, whose rights they are and why (and how) they should be balanced against the public interest in using it to save lives. All four questions appear closely related to what, exactly, a corpse is, a question which the law has not answered clearly. England's 2004 opt-in human tissue legislation made it unlawful to dismantle and use a corpse without explicit consent, a protection of the corpse that superficially resembles the bodily integrity rights of living persons. The Act was amended by the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act 2019, which additionally permits dismantling with 'Deemed Consent', a kind of consent which does not require explicit consent at all. Some authors see this as violating a fundamental right of the corpse, but it is not clear whether such a right does or should exist. In this thesis I explore the law that protects the corpse to determine what, if any, legal rights protect the corpse in English law, whether England's current opt-out legislation accounts for them, and, if not, how it should.

In England and Wales, assisted death (assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia) is in principle subject to criminal prohibition. In practice not all instances of assisted death are prosecuted or punished. If assisted death is morally permissible, this provides a reason for law reform. Permissive law reform on assisted death is unlikely through Parliament. Judicially-initiated law reform on assisted death is perhaps more promising. In R (oao Nicklinson) v Ministry of Justice [2014] UKSC 38, a majority of the Supreme Court took the view that the criminal prohibition on suicide assistance quite possibly infringes the right to decide how and when to die protected by article 8 ECHR. However, the courts have refrained from substantive law reform on assisted death, in part out of concern for the constitutional/institutional legitimacy of such action, and in part out of hostility to extension of the defence of necessity to encompass murder. This thesis develops and defends a common law model for physician-assisted death (best interests physician-assisted death) that addresses the concerns of the courts. Assisted death can be legalised through the medical exception. This leaves the general criminal law undisturbed, and develops the common law in an area that is legitimately the province of the courts. Moreover, while recognising an individual's fundamental freedom to decide how and when to die, physician-assisted death through the medical exception does not permit assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia on demand; it restricts access to a 'good' death to circumstances in which nonexistence is better for an individual. As such, best interests physician-assisted death instantiates optimal moral conditions, that is: Assisted death is permissible iff p (autonomously) wishes to die, suffers gravely (intensely and persistently), and death is a proportionate response to her suffering.