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Euthanasia is the practice of intentionally ending life to relieve pain and suffering.
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Medical ethics is an applied branch of ethics which analyzes the practice of clinical medicine and related scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. These values include the respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Such tenets may allow doctors, care providers, and families to create a treatment plan and work towards the same common goal. It is important to note that these four values are not ranked in order of importance or relevance and that they all encompass values pertaining to medical ethics. However, a conflict may arise leading to the need for hierarchy in an ethical system, such that some moral elements overrule others with the purpose of applying the best moral judgement to a difficult medical situation. Medical ethics is particularly relevant in decisions regarding involuntary treatment and involuntary commitment.
The principle of double effect – also known as the rule of double effect; the doctrine of double effect, often abbreviated as DDE or PDE, double-effect reasoning; or simply double effect – is a set of ethical criteria which Christian philosophers, and some others, have advocated for evaluating the permissibility of acting when one's otherwise legitimate act may also cause an effect one would otherwise be obliged to avoid. The first known example of double-effect reasoning is Thomas Aquinas' treatment of homicidal self-defense, in his work Summa Theologica.
The Uniform Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, was recommended as a Uniform Act in the United States. The Uniform Rights of the Terminally Ill Act subsequently was passed by many states. The Uniform Rights of the Terminally Ill Act was replaced as a recommended Uniform act by the Uniform Health-Care Decision-making Act in 1993. The law allows a person to declare a living will specifying that, if the situation arises, he or she does not wish to be kept alive through life support if terminally ill or in a coma. The patient may also obtain a health care power of attorney. This power of attorney appoints an agent to make medical decision for the patient in case the patient becomes incompetent.
The right to die is a concept based on the opinion that human beings are entitled to end their life or undergo voluntary euthanasia. Possession of this right is often understood that a person with a terminal illness, incurable pain, or without the will to continue living, should be allowed to end their own life, use assisted suicide, or to decline life-prolonging treatment. The question of who, if anyone, may be empowered to make this decision is often subject of debate.
In medicine, specifically in end-of-life care, palliative sedation is the palliative practice of relieving distress in a terminally ill person in the last hours or days of a dying person's life, usually by means of a continuous intravenous or subcutaneous infusion of a sedative drug, or by means of a specialized catheter designed to provide comfortable and discreet administration of ongoing medications via the rectal route.
Terminal illness or end-stage disease is a disease that cannot be cured or adequately treated and is reasonably expected to result in the death of the patient. This term is more commonly used for progressive diseases such as cancer, dementia or advanced heart disease than for injury. In popular use, it indicates a disease that will progress until death with near absolute certainty, regardless of treatment. A patient who has such an illness may be referred to as a terminal patient, terminally ill or simply as being terminal. There is no standardized life expectancy for a patient to be considered terminal, although it is generally months or less. Life expectancy for terminal patients is a rough estimate given by the physician based on previous data and does not always reflect true longevity. An illness which is lifelong but not fatal is a chronic condition.
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Voluntary euthanasia (VE) is the ending of a person's life at their request in order to relieve them of suffering. Voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) have been the focus of intense debate in recent years.
In ethics and other branches of philosophy, suicide poses difficult questions, answered differently by various philosophers. The French Algerian essayist, novelist, and playwright Albert Camus (1913–1960) began his philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus with the famous line "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide".
Ezekiel Jonathan "Zeke" Emanuel is an American oncologist, bioethicist and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. He is the current Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy. Previously, Emanuel served as the Diane and Robert Levy University Professor at Penn. He holds a joint appointment at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Wharton School and was formerly an associate professor at the Harvard Medical School until 1998 when he joined the National Institutes of Health.
Euthanasia is currently illegal in all 50 states of the United States. Assisted suicide is legal in 10 jurisdictions in the US: Washington, D.C. and the states of California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Washington. Its status is disputed in Montana, though currently authorized per the Montana Supreme Court's ruling in Baxter v. Montana that "nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or Montana statutes [indicates] that physician aid in dying is against public policy."
The philosophy of healthcare is the study of the ethics, processes, and people which constitute the maintenance of health for human beings. For the most part, however, the philosophy of healthcare is best approached as an indelible component of human social structures. That is, the societal institution of healthcare can be seen as a necessary phenomenon of human civilization whereby an individual continually seeks to improve, mend, and alter the overall nature and quality of their life. This perennial concern is especially prominent in modern political liberalism, wherein health has been understood as the foundational good necessary for public life.
Child euthanasia is a form of euthanasia that is applied to children who are gravely ill or have significant birth defects. In 2005, the Netherlands became the first country to decriminalize euthanasia for infants with hopeless prognosis and intractable pain. Nine years later, Belgium amended its 2002 Euthanasia Act to extend the rights of euthanasia to minors. Like euthanasia, there is world-wide public controversy and ethical debate over the moral, philosophical and religious issues of child euthanasia.
There are many religious views on euthanasia, although many moral theologians are critical of the procedure.
A surrogate decision maker, also known as a health care proxy or as agents, is an advocate for incompetent patients. If a patient is unable to make decisions for themselves about personal care, some agent must make decisions for them. If there is a durable power of attorney for health care, the agent appointed by that document is authorized to make health care decisions within the scope of authority granted by the document. If people have court-appointed guardians with authority to make health care decisions, the guardian is the authorized surrogate.
Insect euthanasia is the process of killing insects "in a way that minimizes or eliminates pain and distress." It may apply to animals in the laboratory, schools, as pets, as food, or otherwise.
References
- ↑ Wildes, Kevin J. (1996). "Ordinary and extraordinary means and the quality of life". Theological Studies. 57 (3): 500–12. doi:10.1177/004056399605700306. PMID 11658197 . Retrieved 20 July 2011.
- ↑ Kearns, Dr. Allen J. "Ordinary & Extraordinary Treatment: An Ethical Perspective" (PDF). Dublin City University. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
- ↑ Kelly, Gerard (February 1957). "Preserving Life" (PDF). The Linacre Quarterly. 24 (1): 2–5.
- ↑ Kearns op cit.
- ↑ "Ordinary vs. Extraordinary Care - Euthanasia | American Life League". American Life League. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
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