Choosing the right to assisted suicide would be a final exercise of autonomy for the dying. They will not be seen as people who are waiting to die but as human beings making one final active choice in their lives. On the other side of the issue, however, people who are against assisted suicide do not believe that the terminally ill have the right to end their suffering.
They hold that it is against the Hippocratic Oath for doctors to participate in active euthanasia. The oath makes the physician promise to relieve pain and not to administer deadly medicine. This oath cannot be applied to cancer patients. For treatment, cancer patients are given chemotherapy, a form of radioactive medicine that is poisonous to the body. As a result of chemotherapy, the body suffers incredible pain, hair loss, vomiting, and other extremely unpleasant side effects.
Furthermore, to administer numerous drugs to a terminal patient and place him or her on medical equipment does not help anything except the disease itself. Respirators and high dosages of drugs cannot save the terminal patient from the victory of a disease or an illness. Still other people argue that if the right to assisted suicide is given, the doctor-patient relationship would encourage distrust. The antithesis of this claim is true. Other opponents of assisted suicide insist that there are potential abuses that can arise from legalizing assisted suicide.
They claim that terminal patients might be forced to choose assisted suicide because of their financial situation. This view is to be respected. Competent terminal patients can easily see the sorrow and grief that their families undergo while they wait for death to take their dying loved ones away.
The choice of assisted suicide would allow these terminally ill patients to end the sorrow and griefof their families as well as their own misery. The choice would also put a halt to the financial worries of these families. It is all right, please do not worry anymore. Request for premature ending of life has contributed to the debate about the role of such practices in contemporary health care.
This debate cuts across complex and dynamic aspects such as, legal, ethical, human rights, health, religious, economic, spiritual, social and cultural aspects of the civilised society. The objective is to discuss the subject of euthanasia from the medical and human rights perspective given the background of the recent Supreme Court judgement 3 in this context. In India abetment of suicide and attempt to suicide are both criminal offences. The accused were convicted in the trial court and later the conviction was upheld by the High Court.
This made the Supreme Court to rethink and to reconsider the decision of right to die. The Court held that the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution does not include the right to die 5. Regarding suicide, the Supreme Court reconsidered its decision on suicide. It has also clearly stated that a person attempts suicide in a depression, and hence he needs help, rather than punishment.
Therefore, the Supreme Court has recommended to Parliament to consider the feasibility of deleting Section from the Indian Penal Code 3. The practice of palliative care counters this view, as palliative care would provide relief from distressing symptoms and pain, and support to the patient as well as the care giver. Palliative care is an active, compassionate and creative care for the dying 6. It is the duty of the State to protect life and the physician's duty to provide care and not to harm patients.
If euthanasia is legalised, then there is a grave apprehension that the State may refuse to invest in health working towards Right to life. Legalised euthanasia has led to a severe decline in the quality of care for terminally-ill patients in Holland 7.
Hence, in a welfare state there should not be any role of euthanasia in any form. Symptom of mental illness : Attempts to suicide or completed suicide are commonly seen in patients suffering from depression 8 , schizophrenia 9 and substance users It is also documented in patients suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder Hence, it is essential to assess the mental status of the individual seeking for euthanasia.
In classical teaching, attempt to suicide is a psychiatric emergency and it is considered as a desperate call for help or assistance. Several guidelines have been formulated for management of suicidal patients in psychiatry Hence, attempted suicide is considered as a sign of mental illness Malafide intention : In the era of declining morality and justice, there is a possibility of misusing euthanasia by family members or relatives for inheriting the property of the patient.
The Supreme Court has also raised this issue in the recent judgement 3. Hence, to keep control over the medical professionals, the Indian Medical Council Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics Regulations, discusses euthanasia briefly in Chapter 6, Section 6. There is an urgent need to protect patients and also medical practitioners caring the terminally ill patients from unnecessary lawsuit. Law commission had submitted a report no to the government on this issue Emphasis on care : Earlier majority of them died before they reached the hospital but now it is converse.
Now sciences had advanced to the extent, life can be prolonged but not to that extent of bringing back the dead one. This phenomenon has raised a complex situation. The principle is to add life to years rather than years to life with a good quality palliative care. Palliative medicine. Canada: Saunders; Chapter 22, Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide; p. USA: Saunders; Chapter 2, Bioethics in the practice of medicine; p.
Ethics and law for the health professions. New South Wales: Federation Press; Intensive Care Med. Med J Aust. Euthanasia and assisted suicide: A liberal approach versus the traditional moral view. Legalised euthanasia will violate the rights of vulnerable patients. Nargus is passionate about writing on topics that are relevant to the practice of medicine and aims to incorporate medical journalism in her future career as a doctor.
Introduction The topic of euthanasia is one that is shrouded with much ethical debate and ambiguity. Arguments for and against euthanasia There are many arguments that have been put forward for and against euthanasia.
For Rights-based argument Advocates of euthanasia argue that a patient has the right to make the decision about when and how they should die, based on the principles of autonomy and self-determination.
Conflicts of interest None declared. The person in favour of euthanasia argues that giving everybody the right to have a good death through euthanasia is acceptable as a universal principle, and that euthanasia is therefore morally acceptable. If a person wants to be allowed to commit euthanasia, it would clearly be inconsistent for them to say that they didn't think it should be allowed for other people. But the principle of universalisability doesn't actually provide any positive justification for anything - genuine moral rules must be universalisable, but universalisability is not enough to say that a rule is a satisfactory moral rule.
Universalisability is therefore only a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition for a rule to be a morally good rule. So, other than showing that one pre-condition is met, universalisibility doesn't advance the case for euthanasia at all. Every case is different in some respect, so anyone who is inclined to argue about it can argue about whether the particular differences are sufficent to make this case an exception to the rule.
Oddly enough, the law of universalisability allows for there to be exceptions - as long as the exceptions are themselves universalisable. So you could have a universal rule allowing voluntary euthanasia and universalise an exception for people who were less than 18 years old.
But it is one that is used a lot in discussion, and particularly in politics or round the table in the pub or the canteen. People say things like "we can't control drugs so we'd better legalise them", or "if we don't make abortion legal so that people can have it done in hospital, people will die from backstreet abortions".
What lies behind it is Utilitarianism : the belief that moral rules should be designed to produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. If you accept this as the basis for your ethical code and it's the basis of many people's ethics , then the arguments above are perfectly sensible.
If you don't accept this principle, but believe that certain things are wrong regardless of what effect they have on total human happiness, then you will probably regard this argument as cynical and wrong.
From a utilitarian viewpoint, justifying euthanasia is a question of showing that allowing people to have a good death, at a time of their own choosing, will make them happier than the pain from their illness, the loss of dignity and the distress of anticipating a slow, painful death.
Someone who wants euthanasia will have already made this comparison for themselves. But utilitarianism deals with the total human happiness, not just that of the patient, so that even euthanasia opponents who agree with utilitarianism in principle can claim that the negative effects on those around the patient - family, friends and medical staff - would outweigh the benefit to the patient.
It is hard to measure happiness objectively, but one way to test this argument would be to speak to the families and carers of people who had committed assisted suicide. Opponents can also argue that the net effect on the whole of society will be a decrease in happiness. The only way to approach this would be to look at countries where euthanasia is legal. However, as no two countries are alike, it seems impossible to extricate the happiness or unhappiness resulting from legal assisted suicide, from any happiness or unhappiness from other sources.
Even if you agree with the utilitarian argument, you then have to deal with the arguments that suggest that euthanasia can't be properly regulated. If we put aside the idea that death is always a bad thing, we are able to consider whether death may actually sometimes be a good thing. This makes it much easier to consider the issue of euthanasia from the viewpoint of someone who wants euthanasia. The first two reasons form key points in the arguments against euthanasia , but only if you accept that they are true.
The last two reasons why death is a bad thing are not absolute; if a person wants to die, then neither of those reasons can be used to say that they would be wrong to undergo euthanasia. People are usually eager to avoid death because they value being alive, because they have many things they wish to do, and experiences they wish to have. Obviously, this is not the case with a patient who wishes to die - and proper regulation will weed out people who do not really want to die , but are asking for other reasons.
Another reason why death is seen as a bad thing is that it's the worst possible violation of the the wishes of the person who does not want to die or, to use philosophical language, a violation of their autonomy. Some people say that being dead is no different from not having been born yet, and nobody makes a fuss about the bad time they had before they were born. There is a big difference - even though being dead will be no different as an experience from the experience of not having yet been born.
The idea is that death hurts people because it stops them having more of the things that they want, and could have if they continued to live.
0コメント