Ethical Issue in Health Administration: Euthanasia - Essay Example

Arguments For and Against Euthanasia

• “Supporters of euthanasia argue that the right of a competent patient to make medical treatment decisions should include the right to request and receive death by lethal injection” (Wisconsin Right to Life: Euthanasia, 2011, par. 1).
• There are legal, moral, and practical reasons for not legalizing voluntary euthanasia.
• Arguments against euthanasia emphasize that “once you open the door for the killing of patients for one reason, it is nearly impossible to limit the “right” to that one circumstance” (Wisconsin Right to Life: Euthanasia, 2011, par. 24).

Conclusions and Recommendations

Annotated Bibliographies

The Johns Hopkins University and Bruce Leff. (2007). Ethical Issues in Health Care for Older

Persons. Retrieved 21 February 2012

The author, Leff (2007) proffered pertinent issues relative to ethical issues that older persons face within the health care setting. They initially presented the basic principles of ethical decision making focusing on autonomy, beneficence, justice, and nonmaleficence. Other mini-case scenarios were presented; together with an identification of significant points concerning the concept of advance directives. Then, ethics at end-of-life situations, particularly, euthanasia were expounded, detailing the three interventions: active, passive, and assisted. Other ethical issues that were discussed were research ethics and healthcare rationing. The information presented from this discourse is beneficial in the current research through the credibility posed by the author as an associate professor of the John Hopkins University and thereby has been exposed and directly involved in addressing ethical issues faced by older patients at the end-of-life stage.

Wisconsin Right to Life. (2011). Euthanasia. Retrieved 21 February 2012

The discourse presented balanced arguments detailing the legality of the issues; considering this as an option for patients in pain; and other reasons for promoting and using euthanasia. The article likewise identified the groups opposing the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide as coming from both medical and disability rights groups. The contents of the article are thereby useful for the current research in terms of providing a balanced discourse and presenting updated statistics given the current status of its publication (2011). Other valid and authoritative sites were likewise provided for more information on the subject, as deemed necessary.