The issue of medical ethics is still debatable. Its roots grow at the point where disaster takes place. A lack of training in extreme situations puts many physicians and doctors before the decision to be taken lightly and timely. This is the way where all debates spring out. Clear opinion on the way people treat the profession of a doctor (regulating medical process) and a physician (providing direct cure) should be weighed following entire pros and cons.
This will lead to clarifying an independent opinion adjusted through the number and persuasiveness of arguments presented by Robert W. Donnel and Mary Faith Marshall. In this respect, the position of a physician under the strain of extreme circumstances should be weighed about the value of compassion. However, it is applicable under the circumstances of insuperable force.
Mary Faith Marshall could touch upon the soul of a reader owing to her humane and self-responsibility for the cases listed in her article. Euthanasia is an ominous term to be applied in medical practice. It causes pain and it provides disregard of Asclepiades’ Oath. It is a pity that medicine is not correct in the procedures of curing patients. However, if there is no other way to move back or to get through the ominous and painful screams of patients? What should a physician do? It is, perhaps, right according to the law. Living in a law-based society no individual is appreciated to cause death to another individual (s), for it is lawlessness.
That is a right and rational statement. It goes along with the line of absolutism and impeccability, i.e. stability, of law in its supremacy over individuals living within a definite society. Thereafter, one might claim if there is justice in letting a man dying when he/she dares take his/her life. Ending on a sour note, a man can conclude following by further decision-making.
The ratio of what has been done right or wrong will possibly end up in nothing. By contrast, religious thought encompasses the gist of living as by the prescriptions incorporated in the Scriptures. Robert W, Donnel refers in his argument to the statement that the Christian Medical and Dental Associations address their approval of the intent to produce death but not at any cost (Donnel 81). This position is straightforward in terms of the significant human intentions and feeling to help the situation. What is more, Robert W. Donnel insists on the following interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath, namely: “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan” (Donnel 81). In these few words, there are lots of counter-argument to reduce this statement.
First of all, it is better to point out the character of a definite situation to be improved or in consequence of which physicians were obliged to neglect the oath. It considers the case of euthanasia. However hard the pain, a physician should find out the best applicable treatment to relieve the pain. This is normally advised and followed in medicine. This was a norm of Medicare in New Orleans before Katrina. However, just in a split second everything went wrong and the disaster made physicians forget about everything concerned with their life and devote their time and efforts to take care of injured or ill people.
That was in the case of the physician and two nurses outlined in the study accused of producing death to patients. The reason for their actions appeared when there was no reason for governmental support after the hurricane came down like a ton of bricks over New Orleans.
The fair question points out the incapability of the US government to predict and assess the trouble. Putting forth Hegel’s statement on the bilateral variations of a human being between goods and evils, Mary Faith Marshall argues that under the covering of good intentions to oppose the will of a patient at the point of death there is something good (Marshall 1). It would be untrue unless putting oneself into someone else’s shoes. The way people imagine that such a harmful and tragic situation touches upon them is vague and lacks real features. When there is chaos and insanity around anyone (not just a physician or medical staff) can go insane.
The ministers of justice do not take into consideration that the idea of saving lives using euthanasia is prescribed to be the only way in many emergencies. This goes along with the argument of Marry Faith Marshall when she recollects the case of a seaman Holmes. The authority put a law on him accusing him of manslaughter. In everything that had happened that time one can simply infer the brilliant claim that Holmes did “protect, not sacrificed” the lives of perished members of the crew (Marshall 2).
That is the way justice should appeal to. The limitation of law is that it does not count on the circumstances of insuperable force. When one is dying and cannot take the sufferings anymore, a physician then should endure the thought that it is the way things should go on. However, it is the same as torture, somebody, by the hands of “other people.” Martyrdom must be stopped, as would a sound-minded man might say. However, the law appreciates suchlike agonies.
In this respect the right to euthanasia is reduced as the supreme power of law supports people’s suffering. In turn, people under the strain of evil-boding pain that crashes patients’ understanding of reality are lacking their right to live or to die (under specific circumstances). One should take notice that both the law system and religion are for making pain the norm for people beyond recovery. The law encourages the supremacy of reason over lawlessness without anticipating amendments to specific cases. Religion provides a sort of alleged comprehension according to God’s will when a man dies suffering. It is cruel enough to object to such a mainstream attitude of these major institutions of society.
To conclude, there are no justifications to state that people under the oppression of ominous pain do not have the right to compassion and physician the right for producing euthanasia. The main arguments are that by doing so physicians do protect, not sacrifice lives of people on the gate. The sum of goods by helping people do what they suppose to be right at the moment reduces the sum of evils when leaving such people alone with their helplessness. The power of compassion is one of the most human actions when applying to situations when people want to be dead, for they cannot take it anymore. With such a significant right of people for euthanasia judicial system would be more concerned with human values and rights.
Works cited
Donnel, Robert W. “A Bright Line.” Medscape. 8.2 (2006): 81-82.
Marshall, Mary Faith. “Oh, the Water… It Stoned Me to My Soul.” University of Minnesota Bioethics Examiner 9.4 (2006): 1-3.