This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Rhetoricians and bioethicists have analyzed medical assistance in dying (MAiD), sometimes referred to as physician assisted suicide or euthanasia, and suggested that it falls into predictable topoi. To deepen our understanding of public deliberation around medical assistance in dying, we propose a Multi-Methodological, Multiply Ontological (M3O) approach. M3O encourages phronesis through methodological and ontological pivots. Diverging findings from each pivot may surface complexities that only come from putting those findings into conversation. We analyzed public testimony about MAiD bills proposed in Connecticut and Nevada with both framegram and topoi analysis, to discern how pro and anti-MAiD rhetors conceptualized personhood in this discourse. We found that both sides build arguments around intersecting topoi of (1) personhood as a set of ontological traits, (2) personhood as a social practice, (3) questions of autonomy, and (4) issues of vulnerability to suffering. When placed into the context of existing data on MAiD discourse and policy, we found that questions of dignity and personhood may be placed into deeper conversation with an analysis of risk and autonomy to complicate our assumptions about the values implied in this discourse.

Fourteen years after the special issue on neuroscience and rhetoric in this journal (Neurorhetorics, vol. 40, no. 5), we turn back and look forward. We assess what has been accomplished in neurorhetorics in that time frame, examine what has changed in rhetorical studies and in the neurosciences, and offer suggestions for future research. Eight contributors detail the importance of neurorhetorics for their work and engage a range of topics. Those include neurodiversity, neuropolicy, neurogastronomy, and interdisciplinary collaborations, among others. Ultimately, the forum points toward the need for more critical cultural approaches in neurorhetorics, more policy discussions, new methodologies, and new philosophies that can stretch beyond the “neuro-” prefix and enroll insights from New Materialisms and Global Rhetorics.