The Ethics of Euthanasia - Essay Example

The Ethics of Euthanasia For supporters of the idea, euthanasia it is a more fulfilling choice of death over life which may be nothing more than continued suffering. On the other hand, Critics define euthanasia as an act of murder and/or suicide. Some may even mildly term it as assisted suicide. In effect, euthanasia is the final resort to terminate a person's prolonged suffering when all other medical, psychological and physical avenues for better health and better care no longer exist. Legislative discussions for permitting active euthanasia in various countries have been repeatedly debated among their public, the politicians, the jurists, philosophical ethicists and even medical practitioners resulting in drastic to insignificant or ambiguous changes in the concerned country's legal framework. To name a few, countries such as the United States, Netherlands, Belgium and Australia have legalized active euthanasia while some such as Germany only welcome it through the back doors. The methods for performing euthanasia are many and complex since the code of ethics for nurses in America allows nurses to administer pain relieving drugs to a patient even if the nurse knows that the administration of these drugs might lead to the death of the patient. An overdose of pain medication or similar drugs can certainly lead to a peaceful death where the patient dies in his/her sleep without suffering through any painful event. In their published article, two Yugoslav medical practitioners, S. Radulovic and S. Mojsilovic, conducted a survey to define the attitudes and opinions of physicians, supported by medical students and lawyers relating to euthanasia as a problem. The medical practitioners' group, including medical students, opposed the use of euthanasia by a two-third majority of the responses in stark contrast to the lawyers favoring legalization at 61% with oncologists, family doctors and medical students only achieving 43%, 30% and 23% respectively. Doctors and health practitioners, being under moral obligations to their patients, cannot harm them, thus conflicting with Yugoslavian family physicians having a higher rating to use euthanasia as an alternative means to palliative care as against one in every five oncologists (Radulovic & Mojsilovic, 1998). Euthanasia certainly has a dark past since during the period of 1939 to 1941, the Adolf Hitler regime subjected 75,000 to 100, 000 people to a program known as the Action T4. The T4, inline with the 'racial hygiene' program of the same regime, cleansed the German society by systematically killing people with intellectual and/or physical disabilities. This precedent paved the way for the later Holocaust of the Jews of Europe and in present times, the actions are seen by some as being unethical and unconventional methods of new-age assisted suicide for personal and economic motives (Wikipedia, 2006). In an attempt to keep the floodgates closed, the German government has not legalized euthanasia since the past fifteen years, but provided legal loopholes by authorizing German medical practitioners to practically implement an end-of-life decision for the patient whenever it is required by the patient or those who are making decisions on behalf of the patient (Oehmichen & Meissner, 2003). Of course, as a remnant of the Nazi era, it is understandable that German governments following Hitler would be necessarily suspect of situations which call for euthanasia. To speed up the dying process, therapeutic measures or the termination of treatment before the arrival of the death may also be used. The factors which influence a patient's decision can include depression leading to hasty decisions and family influences. Other factors such as the emotional or financial cost of health services can force a patient to give up their will for living and seek out means for physician assisted suicide (Oehmichen & Meissner, 2003). Alternative procedures in medicine allow for restricted use of active euthanasia on dying or vegetative-state patients. A well-developed palliative care system, for example, greatly questions mercy killing. Palliative care can range from easing resulted-nausea after a chemotherapy session to providing food and drink for a terminally-ill patient. No matter what the disease or illness, eliminating pain and prolonging life through reducing severity of the symptoms is the latest answer to active euthanasia. The creation of hospices in well-developed Western countries is a fight against mercy killings by hospitals and even the families of the patients involved in patient care. The 1995 German "Kempten" case where the son of a 72-year old female patient decided to stop the artificial feeding for his mother only prompted controversy in the legal system. Due to her persistent vegetative condition arising from total cerebral dysfunction, the patient was unable to communicate her wish to be fed. Her condition, according to medical expertise, could have improved after two years but the son of the patient and attending physician made the decision to stop the feeding (Sahm, 2000). They were charged with attempted manslaughter by the lower courts. The German Federal Supreme Court revoked the earlier decision on the judgment that the presumed wishes of the patient were not fully considered at the first instance. An unprecedented ruling declared that the presumable will of a person unable to decide for him/herself was crucial in the termination of his/her life-sustaining treatment (Sahm, 2000). Essentially, euthanasia is an ethical question which has to be based on the principles of moral relativism since every individual should be allowed to present his or her own take on the topic. However, despite the legality of euthanasia being a rather grey area, the code of ethics for the nursing profession simply does not permit any individual to willingly take a person's life even if the sole purpose of this action was to be prevent pain and suffering for the patient or the family of the patient. The word ethics comes from the Greek word ethikos which means 'based on habit'. In present terminology, ethics is a branch of philosophy which discusses individual and collective actions as being right, wrong, good or bad. In business and professional fields like finance, construction, public relations, advertising and many others, the application of ethical principles is said to be a part of the good practices which create and increase credibility (Alexandra & Woodruff, 1990). The medical field is not exempt from the practice of ethics and there is an entirely different branch of ethics connected with the actions of doctors and nurses i.e. medical ethics. In fact, medical researchers who have little or no contact with human patients also have to follow bioethics which includes legal guidelines that govern how research can be done on any particular topic (Scanlon, 2000). The field of ethics is so broad that it often becomes difficult to define it in any particular shape or form. Therefore, it is important to know what ethics is not before we can define what it is. Velasquez et. al. (1987) report that when people on the street were inquired about the meaning of ethics, they said that ethics have to do with internal feelings of what is right and wrong or that ethics are religious beliefs or that ethics are legal requirements. People also considered ethics to be acceptable behavior as per the rules of society and some simply did not know what it meant. While the responses stated above may come naturally given the context the word ethics is so often used in. It must be clarified that ethics have nothing to do with the internal feelings of a person (Alexandra & Woodruff, 1990). Feelings and emotions about something may lead a person to do what is wrong rather than what is right. Moreover, religion has little to do with ethics because if ethics were based on religion then every person might be free to follow their own set of ethical guidelines. Additionally, those who do no believe in any religion might consider them free of ethical concerns while clearly everyone has to accept the given ethical guidelines for his or her profession (Velasquez, et. al. 1987). Laws are not ethics because legal clauses may include or be based on ethical principles but all laws at all times may not be ethical. Consider the example of the discriminatory laws which were in place before the civil rights movement or the slave ownership laws before the civil war. If we take ethics to mean whatever is acceptable to society then it would be ethically acceptable to be anti-Semitic if a person were living in Germany during the Nazi era (Velasquez, et. al. 1987). Moreover, it is nearly impossible to accurately judge what is acceptable to society since the acceptance of certain things changes dynamically with time. In and of themselves, ethics as they apply to the medical field cover two things which were discussed by Gillon (2003) and these include: 1. Professionally mandated standards of right and wrong supported by reasonable arguments given by experts in the field that explain how practitioners ought to perform their duties. 2. The further development of the ethical standards a medical practitioner adheres to. If these standards are to be accepted as the given truth for medical practitioners then present ethics demand that euthanasia not be carried out under any circumstances. Legally and ethically a doctor, nurse or any other person connected with providing medical care to a patient has to understand that the first duty of the caregiver is to ensure that the patient is given services which bring improvement in the quality of their life. To give up on that promise and to simply let a patient die because it is convenient for the family of the patient or because the patient him/herself wants to die is nothing more than to be a traitor to the medical profession in general and to the patient in particular. Therefore, I do not see a reason why euthanasia can be considered ethical or necessary by anyone expect those who wish to ease their own pain and suffering rather than to look after the best interests of a patient. Life is always precious and it must be protected. Doctors and nurses take an oath to do no harm to those who are interested in seeking care for them therefore to go against those principles would be to go against thousands of years of medical practice simply to create a situation which would be 'easy' to handle. Word Count: 1,870 Works Cited: Alexandra, A., & Woodruff, A. (1990). Ethics and the professions. Prentice-Hall. American Nurses Association. (2001). Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements. Retrieved from ANA Publications website: http://nursingworld.org/ethics/code/protected_nwcoe303.htm Gillon, R. (2003). Ethics need principles. Journal of Medical Ethics, 29(7): 307-312. Oehmichen, M. Meissner, C. 2003. Active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: the German discussion. Elsevier Legal Medicine from website: http://www.elsevier.com Radulovic, S. Mojsilovic, S. 1998. Attitudes of oncologists, family doctors, medical students and lawyers to euthanasia. Support Care Cancer. 6: 410-415. Sahm, S. W., 2000. Palliative Care versus Euthanasia. The German Position: The German General Medical Council's Principles for Medical Care of the Terminally Ill. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. 25(2): 195-219. Scanlon, C. (2000). A professional code of ethics provides guidance for genetic nursing practice. Nursing Ethics, 7(3): 262-268. Velasquez, M. et. al. (1987). What is Ethics' Retrieved August 24, 2006 from SCU.edu website: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/whatisethics.html Wikipedia, 2006. Action T4. Retrieved from Wikipedia website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-4_Euthanasia_Program Read More