Euthanasia: A Question Of Ethics

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

or contribute to a patient's improvement or cure.
Perhaps the most familiar contemporary medical example is the treatment of burn
victims when survival is unprecedented; if with the treatments or without them
the chances of the patient's survival is nil, mercy requires the physician not
to impose the debridement treatments , which are excruciatingly painful, when
they can provide the patient no benefit at all. Although the demands of mercy
in burn contexts have become fairly well recognized in recent years, other
practises that the principles of mercy would rule out remain common. For
instance, repeated cardiac resuscitation is sometimes performed even though a
patient's survival is highly unlikely; although patients in arrest are
unconscious at the time of resuscitation, it can be a brutal procedure, and if
the patient regains consciousness, its aftermath can involve considerable pain.
Patients are sometimes subjected to continued unproductive, painful treatment to
complete a ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

the principle asserts a duty to act to end
suffering that is already occurring. Medicine already honours this duty through
its various techniques of pain management, including physiological means like
narcotics, nerve blocks, acupuncture, and neurosurgery. In some cases pain or
suffering is severe but cannot be effectively controlled, at least as long as
the patient remains sentient at all. Classical examples include tumours of the
throat, tumours of the brain or bone, and so on. Severe nausea, vomiting, and
exhaustion may increase the patient's misery. In these cases, continuing life-
or at least continuing consciousness- may mean continuing pain. Mercy's demand
for euthanasia ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: