Euthanasia is the process by which medical practitioners assist patients to die based on their preference for the same. Sometimes, the patient makes explicit requests for assistance. However, in other situations, the patient may not be in a position to make those demands. Therefore, someone else will make the decision for them. The practice has become a central ethical concern for medical practitioners because technology allows individuals to prolong their lives irrespective of the quality or degree of suffering of the patient.
This matter is a moral question owing to three key questions. A health professional must put into consideration three traits before making the ultimate decisions. First, one must ask whether termination of a patient’s life is ever right even in severe and unceasing pain or terminal illness. If one responds in the affirmative, then one must outline the circumstances under which euthanasia would be ethical. Finally, one must distinguish between letting one die and actively killing them.
Health professionals have the option of injecting a lethal drug or provide an overdose as a way of assisting someone to die. This form of euthanasia is active euthanasia, and is illegal in all states in the US. Currently, three states – Washington, Oregon and Montana – allow assisted suicide or withdrawal of treatment. Therefore, even if a health professional believes that it is a patient’s right to choose when and how to die, he must consider the legal implications of the same (Fieser 15).
A series of values contradict each other or may be used as ethical prerogatives in euthanasia cases. A health practitioner must tackle the conflicting interests of paternalism versus autonomy. Many supporters of euthanasia claim that patients have the autonomy to decide when and how they will die. In this case, practitioners must decide whether they respect their patient’s right to self determination more than their right to life.
In states where assisted suicide is permissible, practitioners need to know which values are more important. Medial paternalism occurs when health professionals feel that they have the obligation to control patient’s rights irrespective of their wishes. Careful consideration of the patient’s wishes must go hand in hand with the notion that sometimes healthcare professionals know best. Therefore, issues of paternalism must be counterbalance with those of self determination.
Concerns about beneficence must also be balanced with maleficence. All medical professionals are under the obligation of doing good (beneficence) and causing no harm (maleficence). In the matter of euthanasia, professionals ought to decide between the overall good of the dying patient and that of other stakeholders. Opponents of euthanasia affirm that the practice would place a lot of pressure on elderly patients to seek assisted death.
In a health system where costs are constantly escalating, some family members would eagerly embrace an alternative to costly treatments. This behavior would lead to maleficence. Conversely, other advocates believe that alternatives to euthanasia exist. They affirm that depression and pain management are the key propellants of suicide, and terminating such patients’ lives would be a short cut. Therefore, practitioners who choose these alternatives lead to beneficence in the field of medicine (Keown 33).
The ethical decision maker must consider tensions between the quality of life versus its sanctity. Some individuals assert that performing euthanasia implies that some lives are more valuable than others. Many beliefs teach that human lives are worth living and that no life is worth destroying.
A medical practitioner who holds such beliefs would find it immoral to assist patients in committing suicide as it would be tantamount to playing God. On the flipside, a person may claim not all lives are equal especially during terminal illness. If a person’s body has undergone severe physical deterioration that they have to depend on others for even the most basic functions, then the quality of their life is low.
Additionally, the person may lose his or her identity due to mental challenges and unresponsive pain. Adherents of the latter school may accuse the state of violating the sanctity of life by contravening a patient’s right to die. In essence, one person’s theology is another’s transgression. Members of the health profession must weigh overall sentiments on these values and the legal implications of both before they pick a side.
Issues of treatment futility (extraordinary treatment) versus ordinary care must also be taken into consideration. Some religious communities advocate for the provision of ordinary care.
In essence, the believe that patients have a right to access medical treatment so long as it is not extremely expensive, inconvenient or even painful to the dying patient. In such cases, treatment is futile and could even cause problems to other patients. However such groups call for provision of ordinary care in the form of food and water even in non-responsive patients.
The problem with this school of thought is that it is extremely difficult to decide which medical procedures are extraordinary and futile. Dialysis machines may be useful to some dying patients but the same is not true for others. Experimental drugs may be ineffectual to some and useful to others. Therefore, medical practitioners who do not belong to those schools of thought may follow their own path. However, those that do may need to consider continual provision of feeding tubes and other life-support devices.
Overly, professionals should give primacy to legal codes which forbid physician-initiated euthanasia. In states that allow withdrawal or passive euthanasia, a range of ethical values must be balanced depending on the professional’s beliefs. This relate to autonomy, paternalism, maleficence, beneficence, treatment futility, ordinary care, sanctity of life and the quality of life.
Works Cited
Fieser, James. Euthanasia: the practice of morality. 2008. Web.
Keown, John. Euthanasia, ethics and public policy: An argument against legislation. Cambridge: CUP, 202. Print.