In the article, Incorvaia discusses how voluntarily stopping eating and drinking — in this case, used to hasten death in the face of terminal illness — might be received by Christian Protestants. She posits that the group would be open to the practice because of their more liberal political leanings and potential Christian-based justifications for the practice.

Incorvaia tests this theory with a case study of one Anabaptist congregation and finds that the participants were in favor of voluntarily stopping eating and drinking, though they differed in their responses to faith-based justifications for it.

“The church’s doctrinal context did not forbid the behavior; the community focused on nonjudgment and acceptance of their (imagined) intimate peer; and the legality of the choice was clear, up to a point,” Incorvaia writes. “Future researchers should consider executing comparative case studies to test this framework and advance its elaboration.”

Read the full article at https://doi.org/10.1177/26323524221101074.