Euthanasia Flashcards
What is physician-assited suicide?
a doctor provides drugs that will end a patient’s life. Usually the patient would take the drugs themselves. If the doctor administers the drugs, it is active euthanasia.
What is active euthanasia?
medication is given with the express purpose of shortening someone’s life
What is passive euthanasia?
The withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, leading to someone’s death.
What is voluntary euthanasia?
When the patient makes a specific choice to die.
What is non-voluntary euthanasia?
where the patient is not in a position to make a choice, e.g. in a Persistent Vegetative State
What is in-voluntary euthanasia?
When the patient does not want to die.
What is UK law on Euthanasia?
In the Uk in 2006, euthanasia is illegal, but doctors can withdraw treatment even without specific consent
What are the issues with Euthanasia?
What would happen if we legalised euthanasia?
Is it wrong to kill?
Do we have a right to die?
Is killing the same as letting die?
What are the issues if euthanasia is legalised?
This is a teleological question. Some people campaign constantly, arguing that there are many people suffering greatly who would benefit hugely if euthanasia were legalised. The response given by some is that the number of people who would feel threatened by a law allowing euthanasia is much greater - the elderly, people with disabilities, people who are unwell etc.
What are the issues about whether it is wrong to kill?
The absolutist belief that it is always wrong to kill is a deontological position. It may be refined as ‘It is always wrong to kill someone who is innocent’, to allow killing in self defence or in war. However, if it can be changed in that way, why not make a rule that says ‘It is always wrong to kill someone who does not want to die’?
What are the issues of whether killing is the same as letting someone die?
Put another way, what is the difference between acts and omissions? Should the law require us (or doctors) to act a certain way, or merely stop us from acting in certain ways?
What are the issues of whether we have a right to die?
Bentham famously said that all talk of natural rights is “nonsense on stilts”. Yet some people claim we have a ‘right to die’. Other people say we have a right to dignity, and that euthanasia can provide a dignified, peaceful death rather than a prolonged period of lost dignity and great suffering. Rights are deontological. Some deontologists argue that we have the right to decide what happens to us.
What was the case study of Dax Cowart?
Dax Cowart was very badly burnt after a gas explosion engulfed his car. He said “I was burned so severely and in so much pain that I did not want to live even in the early moments following the explosion.” Dax repeatedly asked his doctors, family and friends to help him end his suffering, which lasted through 10 years of agonising treatment. Dax is blind and cannot use his hands, but is otherwise healthy and currently works as an attorney. He still believes it was wrong to deny his request for euthanasia.
What happened in the case study of Dianne Pretty?
Dianne Pretty was suffering from motor neurone disease and wanted to die. She and her husband petitioned the courts to give immunity from prosecution to her husband if he were to help her to kill herself. He did not get immunity, the disease took its inevitable course, and Dianne Pretty died in hospital under exactly the sort of conditions she had wanted to avoid. The court cases, show an interesting range of ethical responses, ending with the statement from the European Courts only weeks before she died that Dianne Pretty did not have the right to die.
What happened in the case study of Dr Jake Kevorkian?
Later in his career (starting in 1987) he began to advertise his services as a physician offering ‘death counselling’. When terminally ill patients learned that he was helping people to die, more and more people came to him. Despite several failed court cases, Kevorkian helped over 130 people to die. Kevorkian believed that helping people was not enough, and actually killed Thomas Youk, filmed himself doing so and showed the film on 60 Minutes. He left the studio in handcuffs, and, defending himself unsuccessfully in court, was sentenced to 10-25 years in prison.
What happened in the case study of Tony Bland in 1989?
When doctors at Airedale Hospital in Yorkshire asked the High Court for permission to withdraw artificial nutrition and hydration from Hillsborough victim Tony Bland, his family supported the application.
After the Hillsborough stadium tragedy, Tony was left in a persistent vegetative state - and hence was not legally dead. His parents believed their son would not want to be kept alive in such a condition. They petitioned the court to sanction the withdrawal of hydration and artificial nutrition, which it did.
What happened in the case study of Dr Nigel Cox in 1992?
Dr Nigel Cox remains the only doctor ever to be convicted in the UK of attempting to perform a mercy killing. A consultant rheumatologist from Hampshire, he was found guilty of attempted murder after injecting 70-year-old Lillian Boyes with a lethal drug. The charge of attempted murder was brought because it could not be proved conclusively that the injection had killed her.
Despite the verdict, Winchester Crown Court imposed a suspended sentence, while the General Medical Council let him off with a reprimand. He is still practising medicine in Hampshire. During Dr Cox’s court case and subsequent appearance before the General Medical Council, Ms Boyes’ family never wavered in their support for the doctor’s actions.
What happened in the case of Mary Ormerod in 1995?
Her doctor, with the support of her daughters, had taken a conscious decision to withhold a nutritional supplement called Fresubin from the 85-year-old after she ceased to communicate with the outside world. But Dr Ken Taylor, the GP who took the decision, was suspended by the General Medical Council, the regulatory body for doctors, after nurses at the home complained about his actions. His six-month suspension was not directly because of his treatment of Mrs Ormerod, but because he failed to listen to nurses and consult colleagues. In fact, he had done nothing legally wrong in starving Mrs Ormerod.
