Physician Assisted Suicide - Research Paper Example

? Physician Assisted Suicide No. Physician Assisted Suicide Introduction The debate about physician-assisted suicide is not about to die soon. This is so because it revolves around people’s lives. It takes place when a physician facilitates death of a patient by prescribing the necessary means or vital information that enables the patient to carry out the life-ending act (Kluge, 2000). This may take the form of a physician providing a patient with information about lethal dose and sleeping pills while knowing that the prescription may lead to the patient’s death (Kluge, 2000). Much as it is tragic, its proponents argue that some patients in extreme pressure such as those suffering from painful, debilitating and terminal illnesses may end up deciding that death is the best option instead of undergoing such a miserable and painful experience. Its opponents however argue that, allowing physicians to partake assisted suicide causes more harm than good to patients (McDougall& Gorman, 2008). They consider the act incompatible with the role of a physician as a healer, which would be difficult to control and would pose serious risks to the society. Based on these arguments, the question now is, is physician-assisted suicide ethically permissible? This paper will discuss ethical issues and problems that physicians-assisted suicide presents to patients and the society. It will also explain how utilitarianism theory may be used to resolve the problem and contrast the response with ethical egoism. The essay will finally the views that is closer to mine with regard to physician-assisted suicide. The debate on ethics of physician-assisted suicide continues in the world of medicine and the society. Some argue that it is ethically accepted. They tend to argue on the grounds that assisted suicide in a rational choice for a dying patient who is choosing to escapes from painful suffering towards the end of life (Kluge, 2000). Moreover, the work of a physician to alleviate suffering sometime approves assisted suicide. These arguments are based on justice, respect for individual autonomy, compassion, honesty and transparency, and on individuals liberty against state interest. Based on justice to patients, those who favor assisted suicide argue that justice require that physicians “treat like cases alike”. They reason that, competent, terminally sick patients have the legal right to resist treatment that may have an impact of prolonging their lives while they continue to suffer the painful experience. For those patients who are suffering but are autonomous of life support, such as dialysis or respirators, resisting treatment will however not suffice to quicken death. For this reason, to treat these patients fairly, physicians should be allowed to perform assisted death, as this may be the best option to hasten death. Proponents of the physicians assisted suicide also base their argument on respect for autonomy. It is argued that the decision about circumstances and time of death is personal. For this reason, any individual should have the right to determine when he or she is to die. Therefore, competent people should be given the right to decide the manner and timing of death. Proponents also base their argument for assisted death on compassion. They argue that suffering is more than just pain; there are other existential, physical, social and psychological burden such as lose of autonomy, sense of self, and functional capacities which certain patients feel deprived of their dignity (McDougall& Gorman, 2008). For instance, a patient may be suffering from a disease, which requires total dependence on someone to do certain things such as going to the toilet, moving out of the house or even eating. The overreliance on assistance has a lot of psychological, social effects lowering dignity of patients. It is also not always easy to relieve suffering. It is for this reason that assisted suicide may be a compassionate to abating suffering. The ethical issue is based on honesty and transparency. Proponents acknowledge that physicians assisted suicide already occurs especially in secrete. For this reason, the fact that some states illegalize the act opens discussion, which is good for both patients and physicians to take part in. Legalization of assisted death is seen to promote open discussion, which in turn promoted better life-ending care since physicians, and patients could more directly solve the concerns and get a better option over the issue. The ethical issue concerning the issue of assisted death is also argued with regard to liberty of an individual against state interest. For instance, the society generally has strong interest in life preservation. However, this interest usually fades when an individual is terminally ill and has a lot of desire of ending their lives. Therefore, proponents of assisted death argue that prohibition of physician-assisted suicide excessively limits an individual’s personal liberty. For this reason, assisted death should be allowed in extreme cases. On the other hand, opponents of assisted death usually base their argument against the issue with regard to sanctity of life (Wolfslast, 2008). Both secular and religious traditions have historically upheld the sanctity of life by resisting assisted death or suicidal acts. They argue that assisted death is morally wrong since it diminishes the sanctity of human life. Furthermore, the act goes against God’s Ten Commandments as is found in Exodus chapter 20:2-17. It says, “Thou shall not kill.” It is for this reason that Christian faithfully, argue that allowing assisted suicide to be carried out amount to disobedient of this commandment thus not morally right. Opponents of physicians assisted suicide argue that it can potentially be abused. For instance, they argue that vulnerable population that lacks access to quality health care and support may be forced into assisted suicide despite the fact that their problems may be solved (McDougall& Gorman, 2008). Moreover, physicians-assisted suicide is seen as a cost-containment strategy. For instance, they argue that families’ members and providers of health care services that are burdened with certain illnesses may end up encouraging their sick loved ones to seek for assisted suicide and legislative protections may not be at a position to catch such instances of exploitation and coercion. Therefore, to protect against such abuse of human right to life, physician-assisted suicide should remain illegal. Opponents of the act also base their arguments on professional integrity. Going by ethical history and traditions in medicine, taking an individual’s life is considered unethical. For example, the oath of Hippocratic state, “I will not administer poison to anyone where asked and I will be of benefit or at least no harm” (Kluge, 2000, p57). Moreover, certain groups of professionals such as the American Geriatrics and American Medical Association are against assisted suicide. The overall concern of opponents of the assisted death is that, linking assisted suicide to professional practice of medicine has the potential of harming both integrity and the general public’s image of the profession (Seale, 2009). Opponent sometime base their argument on fallibility of the profession. Their concern is that, physicians may end up making mistakes. For example, they argue that in some instances, there may be uncertainty with regard to diagnosis and prognosis (Wolfslast, 2008). Errors may occur in performing diagnosis and treatments of psychological illnesses such as depression, or insufficient treatment of pain. For this reason, the state has duty to protect human lives from such inevitable mistakes and to advance management of pain and symptoms. Now the other issue at hand is how these problems can be solved to help in putting the debate to an end. Theories can however be used to explain how the problem can be solved. The major theories that have been used in an attempt to end the problem include utilitarian, deontology, and virtue ethics. For the purpose of this paper, I have picked on utilitarianism. Utilitarianism Utilitarianism (cosequentialism) is a theory of morals developed and refined by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The theory is based on the facets that an action or moral rules right only if it is capable of maximizing the amount of nonmoral good created in consequences that results from performing such acts or following the same rule in comparison with other acts open to the agent (Asch & Dekay, 1997). Utilitarian theory of moral value can thus be used to solve the problem of physician-assisted suicide. This is from its suggestion of what a nonmoral imply. For instance, utilitarianism deny that there exist any moral rule or actions that are intrinsically right or wrong. They however believe in objectives values, which are nonmoral. For instance, hedonistic utilitarians argue that the only intrinsic good in life is pleasure and avoidance of pain (Asch & Dekay, 1997). Quantitative hedonist goes ahead to say that the degree of pleasure and pain is the sole thing that is important in deciding between two divergent courses of actions. Therefore, a physician, doctor and any person involved in the issue should do what produces highest amount of pleasure and minimal amount of pain. This is measured by factors such as time duration and intensity of pleasure. Moreover, quantitative hedonists argue that the only intrinsic good is pleasure; however, what is important is the type of pleasure and not the amount. For instance, hedonists would rank pleasure that come from friendship, reading or art as more important in comparison to those, which are derived from the stomach. When all these arguments are factored in by both the opposing side of the divide, it is apparent that the problem will be resolved. Pluralistic utilitarian’s argument can also assist in solving the problem at hand (Asch & Dekay, 1997). Pluralistic argue that there are several things that have intrinsic, nonmoral values. These include pleasure, health, friendship, knowledge, peace, freedom and security among others. For pluralists, it is not only pleasure derived from friendship that has value but even friendship itself. Therefore, in making a choice as to whether to legalize assisted death or not, all these factors should be taken into consideration. The term utility is used by utilitarian to refer to whatever good, which they are seeking to produce as a result of moral action. This includes the hedonist’s pleasure, and subjective satisfaction preferences for others. They view morality as away-to-ends way. In this regard, the only value of moral rule or action is the utility derived from its consequences. For this reason, any moral action performed should be able to maximize utility. This means that, the right moral rule or action is that which produces the greatest people highest amount of utility. Based on this argument, physicians should to what they perceive would produce the greatest amount of good to the society. In this case, in any case they consider that assisted suicide would produce the greatest good to the society and the patient in question, they should proceed and act appropriately. Otherwise, if they perceive assisted death in a given situation to have bad effects to a large number of people in the society, then they should refrain from acting even if a patient or relative asks from such an action. Utilitarianism is also based on act. In this case, an act is right if and only if no any other act is available ac maximizing utility compared to the act in question. In this regard, all new moral situations is analyzed on its own merit and moral rules such as, “don’t kill” are considered secondary. This implies that a moral agent such as a physician should first be able to weigh all the available alternatives and select that which produces the best consequences. With regard to the issue at hand, a physician should be guided by professionalism (McDougall & Gorman, 2008). In this case, before deciding whether or not to perform assisted death, he or she as a professional should first consider all the alternatives that may help save the life of the individual. This means doing thorough analysis and examination of the patient to ascertain that it is only death that may produce the greatest good to both the patient and the society at large. Rule utilitarian on the other hand argue that the best moral actions are performed in keeping with the right moral rules. Despite this view, no moral rule is intrinsically right or wrong. Instead, the right moral rule is that which can maximize utility if a large number of people pursue it as opposed to pursuing an alternative rule. In this case, an alternative rule such as (don’t kill vs. don’t kill unless doing so would enhance friendship) are evaluated based on their consequences, and not specific actions. References Kluge, W. (2000). "Assisted Suicide, Ethics and the Law: The Implication of Autonomy and Respect for Persons, Equality and Justice, and Beneficence". In Prado, C.G.. Assisted Suicide: Canadian Perspectives. Ottawa, Canada: University of Ottawa Press. McDougall, J. & Gorman, M. (2008). Contemporary World Issues: Euthanasia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. Wolfslast, G. (2008). ""Physician-Assisted Suicide and the German Criminal Law."". In Birnbacher, Dieter; Dahl, Edgar. Giving Death a Helping Hand: Physician Assisted Suicide and Public Policy. An international Perspective. Germany: Springer. Seale C. (2009). "Legalisation of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide: survey of doctors' attitudes". Palliat Med 23 (3): 205–12. Asch, D. & Dekay, M. (1997). "Euthanasia among US critical care nurses. Practices, attitudes, and social and professional correlates". Med Care 35 (9): 890–900. Read More