Moral panics are short-term heightened attention that can create long-term social change, especially through the creation of new laws or cultural meanings. Moral panics can by cyclical, repeating over time as old concerns re-emerge. However, the lifecourse of a moral panic is poorly understood, especially in terms of how a concern stops being a moral panic. This article uses newspaper opinion and editorial articles about a new physician aid-in-dying law to show that concerns about aid in dying have ceased to be a moral panic and that policy and medical experts played a role in quelling concerns. Policy and medical experts’ actions may stabilize the moral panic, but their actions also change the larger institutional fields of policy and medicine.

道德恐慌是短期的高度关注，可以引起长期的社会变化，尤其是通过创建新的法律或文化含义的方式。道德恐慌可能是周期性的，随着时间的流逝，随着旧问题的再次出现，道德恐慌会不断地重复。但是，人们对道德恐慌的生活历程知之甚少，特别是在关注如何停止成为道德恐慌方面。本文使用报纸评论和社论文章中有关一种新的医生死刑法律的文章来表明，对死者的援助的关注已不再是道德上的恐慌，政策和医学专家在消除关注中发挥了作用。政策和医学专家的行为可以稳定道德恐慌，但他们的行为也改变了政策和医学的更大机构领域。