Euthanasia

[fonso]

Is physician assisted mercy-killing acceptable in your opinion?

For me, I would have to say yes. I would knowingly take the life of a friend or relative if it would ease them of immense suffering.

[Amadeus]

One could say that we are eliminating opportunities for God's miraculous healings (they DO happen occasionally) by allowing euthanasia.

I also don't accept the concept of killing the patient when the treatment is "outrageous". The way you wrote it, it seems that there is still that little chance that the treatment would make a difference. Should we eliminate possibilities just because they seem improbable? Don't you remember when people thought it was improbable to fly, or to get to the moon?

[Tigerlilly]

I also don't accept the concept of killing the patient when the treatment is "outrageous". The way you wrote it, it seems that there is still that little chance that the treatment would make a difference. Should we eliminate possibilities just because they seem improbable? Don't you remember when people thought it was improbable to fly, or to get to the moon?

Well, I think the chances have to be pretty significant that the treatment wont work. In this case, it would be involuntary, but I would support it. I am much more in favour of Voluntary Euthanasia (Active, not Passive). Passive tends to stretch things out causing more suffereing and cost. Passive involves actively killing, but that limits the pain and denegration, so I believe it makes better use of justice/mercy for the poor patient.

As for the Outrageous: I meant to say that if the treatment has a resonable probabilty of curing or fixing the ailment, but if the treatment will only help one thing, but the patient is surely going to die of something else soon, I don't think it would be worth it.

For example, if someone only has a few weeks to live, I don't think it would be a good use of resouces and mercy to extend the life of the patient by giving him a huge operation that closts many thousands of dollars.

[Amadeus]

The scary thing about it is that it would be up to the Doctors, NOT the patient, right? What if the patient does not want to die? Why is that not murder?

[Tigerlilly]

Well, In most cases Euthanasia should be voluntary active, but there are cases in which self-determination and autonomy must be limited. It wouldn't be murder, because the person would soon die anyway and he has a duty to die at that point, instead of just "hanging around" for the sake of it.

Doctors don't have the responsibility to provide care the patient doesn't want or care that is extraordinary if it won't do anything. It's a misuse of justice.

It would be like having an operation on someoen who's bleeding to death if that person is going to die despite the effort.

Or, it would also be like giving someone a huge treatment for cancer when they only have a couple weeks left to live.

One could construe it as murder, but murder is usually defined as taking life with malicious, premeditated intent. Not all killing is murder.

For example, self-defense isn't murder, and it's against the will of teh attacker. Soldiers in combat don't commit murder.

[mrmufin]

The scary thing about it is that it would be up to the Doctors, NOT the patient, right? What if the patient does not want to die? Why is that not murder?

If the patient doesn't want to die, it's not euthanasia. This has nothing to do with doctors deciding whether or not to treat patients or let them die. Euthanasia is about the patient deciding the conditions in which they don't want to be treated; it's essentially the patient's preference of death to suffering. My dictionary pretty much defines euthanasia as "painless death to avoid suffering."

Regards,
mrmufin

[Tigerlilly]

If the patient doesn't want to die, it's not euthanasia. This has nothing to do with doctors deciding whether or not to treat patients or let them die. Euthanasia is about the patient deciding the conditions in which they don't want to be treated; it's essentially the patient's preference of death to suffering. My dictionary pretty much defines euthanasia as "painless death to avoid suffering."

It still is Euthanasia. There are several forms of Euthanasia.

A dubiously differentation between Passive and Active.

Then there are three more subsets

1. Involuntary Euthanasia
2. Voluntary Euthanasia
3. Unvoluntary Euthanasia

Under certain circumstances, you might kill another preson under the classification of Euthanasia as is defined by Ethicists.

The dictionary tends to give simplistic definitions for things that are fairly complicated. Euthansia goes very deep. The dictionary isn't wrong,but it's not correct either, exactly.

There are many Cases of Euthanasia in which the patient doesn't want to die, but must. It's known as unvoluntary, I think. (Involuntary I believe is when the patient is no longer competent IE life support but Coma).

Involuntary is when keep the patient around would cause undo damage to society and family, or when the treatements become outrageous. Hospitals, for example, have no responsibility to give treatment that won't work. In that case, I don't support just letting the person die. I would rather see Active Euthanasia.

[ST88]

Well, In most cases Euthanasia should be voluntary active, but there are cases in which self-determination and autonomy must be limited. It wouldn't be murder, because the person would soon die anyway and he has a duty to die at that point, instead of just "hanging around" for the sake of it.

Doctors don't have the responsibility to provide care the patient doesn't want or care that is extraordinary if it won't do anything. It's a misuse of justice.

It would be like having an operation on someoen who's bleeding to death if that person is going to die despite the effort.

Or, it would also be like giving someone a huge treatment for cancer when they only have a couple weeks left to live.

The problem with this view is that doctors are not gods who can state with a virtual certainty that ther patient has "3 weeks to live" or whatever. There are obvious cases, such as 3rd-degree burns over 90% of the body, but that condition is not necessarily painful.

But there are plenty of cancer-regression stories or other "never breathe on his own again" type of stories that have befuddled doctors for years. Euthanasia that is not voluntary implies a kind of medical certainty that we don't have.

I don't mean to sound like this is religion taking the place of medicine -- there is just so much about the human body and its interactions with various environments that we don't yet understand.

One could construe it as murder, but murder is usually defined as taking life with malicious, premeditated intent. Not all killing is murder.

For example, self-defense isn't murder, and it's against the will of teh attacker. Soldiers in combat don't commit murder.

This is only because "murder" is a legal term of art that describes the extenuating circumstances in a killing. Some translations have the sixth commandment as Thou shalt not murder and some have kill. That does change the meaning for the Judeo-Christian.

By the way, Second Degree Murder requires no such premeditation in many states.

[Tigerlilly]

But there are plenty of cancer-regression stories or other "never breathe on his own again" type of stories that have befuddled doctors for years. Euthanasia that is not voluntary implies a kind of medical certainty that we don't have.

Medical Science is pretty good, and we can tell with a fair ammount of certainty who has what time left. It' not perfect, but no human endeavour is. Sometimes you have to have involuntary due to distributive justice.

There are obvious cases, such as 3rd-degree burns over 90% of the body, but that condition is not necessarily painful.

No. It's not paintful, but other types of major burns are, and you get much more sick when you get serious burns, and that leads to nasuea, vomiting, constant medical treatment, and you most likely will die anyway.

[ST88]

Medical Science is pretty good, and we can tell with a fair ammount of certainty who has what time left. It' not perfect, but no human endeavour is. Sometimes you have to have involuntary due to distributive justice.

Isn't this also denying the patient the right to live as he/she chooses? Up until the point of death, the patient is presumed to be a sentient being -- even if in a coma -- and unless there is a plasma shortage or a lack of transplantable kidneys, shouldn't everything be done to maintain that situation?

My comment about doctors not knowing everything doesn't just apply to the medical knowledge of when a patient will likely die, it also applies to the quality of life of that particular patient. I would think we would have to assume that, barring instructions to the contrary, any given person would want to live -- and this desire should supercede any common good that might be achieved by accelerating the patient's death.

In an ideal world, I realize, everyone would get every kind of care possible. But because there are only so many resources at any given time, an imminently dying person should not receive the balance of transfusable blood -- which would extend life for a few hours, let's say -- that could otherwise be used to save the lives of a number of others in the same hospital. This example shows that resources can be distributed for the greater good by "sacrificing" time in one person's life. From what I understand, this sometimes happens in emergency rooms and battlefield medical units.

But considering the example of euthanizing the imminently dying person, it is necessary to use an additional set of different resources in order to perform the euthanasia, whether it's an overdose of potassium or morphine or whatever. I would think that actual utility would depend on the amount of resources designated for the case -- the patient -- versus the need for those resources in other cases. The agent required for euthanasia could be used to preserve the life or the quality of life for another patient. Even if chemicals were not used, the time and emotional response of the euthanizer involved would be spent. And what is the difference between euthanizing an imminently dying patient and allowing that patient to die? Does it matter how long this patient has to live? Does it matter how much they are suffering even if they have not indicated a wish to die?

This would seem to be a loss of utility, to use additional resources to hasten the death of someone who will die soon anyway.

[mrmufin]

There are many Cases of Euthanasia in which the patient doesn't want to die, but must. It's known as unvoluntary, I think. (Involuntary I believe is when the patient is no longer competent IE life support but Coma).

Involuntary is when keep the patient around would cause undo damage to society and family, or when the treatements become outrageous. Hospitals, for example, have no responsibility to give treatment that won't work. In that case, I don't support just letting the person die. I would rather see Active Euthanasia.

I think that when the patient "doesn't want to die, but must" the ethics of euthanasia can become a bit questionable. (Hopefully, you make a distinction between those who don't have the capacity to make a decision and those who knowimgly want to live...?) I have no problem in situations where an individual has a living well specifiying not to be kept on life support, or when a patient is truly suffering and wishes not to be a burden to family. In situations where the patients will is unknown, my support for euthanasia is a bit more reserved. While doctors may feel quite confident in their abilities to make accurate prognoses, involuntary euthanasia, as ST88 pointed out, implies more medical certainty than we have.

Regards,
mrmufin