Posted: June 18th, 2015

Philosophy – Biomedical Ethics – Euthanasia

Philosophy – Biomedical Ethics – Euthanasia

This is a short, formal compositions that calls upon you to engage critically with our readings and the issues. Remember, this is a philosophy assignment so make sure to answer the question fully. Make sure to fulfill both parts.

Analysis Essay Assignment:

Brock argues that there is no morally relevant difference between voluntary active euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. Present his argument for this claim as carefully as you can. Now criticize this argument, that is, demonstrate that it is either invalid or unsound.

VOLUNTARY ACTIVE EUTHANASIA
Since the case of Karen Quinlan first seized public attention fifteen years ago, no issue in biomedical
ethics has been more prominent than the debate about forgoing life-sustaining treatment. Controversy
continues regarding some aspects of that debate, such as forgoing life-sustaining nutrition and
hydration, and relevant law varies some from state to state. Nevertheless, I believe it is possible to
identify an emerging consensus that competent patients, or the surrogates of incompetent patients,
should be permitted to weigh the benefits and burdens of alternative treatments, including the
alternative of no treatment, according to the patient’s values, and either to refuse any treatment or to
select from among available alternative treatments. This consensus is reflected in bioethics scholarship,
in reports of prestigious bodies such as the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in
Medicine, The Hastings Center, and the American Medical Association, in a Large body of judicial
decisions in courts around the country, and finally in the beliefs and practices of health care
professionals who care for dying patients.( n1)
More recently, significant public and professional attention has shifted from life-sustaining treatment to
euthanasia–more specifically, voluntary active euthanasia–and to physician-assisted suicide. Several
factors have contributed to the increased interest in euthanasia. In the Netherlands, it has been openly
practiced by physicians for several years with the acceptance of the country’s highest court.( n2) In 1988
there was an unsuccessful attempt to get the question of whether it should be made legally permissible
on the ballot in California In November 1991 voters in the state of Washington defeated a widely
publicized referendum proposal to legalize both voluntary active euthanasia and physician-assisted
suicide. Finally, some cases of this kind, such as “It’d Over, Debbie,” described in the Journal of the
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American Medical Association, the “suicide machine” of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, and the cancer patient
“Diane” of Dr. Timothy Quill, have captured wide public and professional attention.( n3) Unfortunately,
the first two of these cases were sufficiently problematic that even most supporters of euthanasia or
assisted suicide did not defend the physicians’ actions in them. As a result, the subsequent debate they
spawned has often shed more heat than light. My aim is to increase the light, and perhaps as well to
reduce the heat, on this important subject by formulating and evaluating the central ethical arguments
for and against voluntary active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. My evaluation of the
arguments leads me, with reservations to be noted, to support permitting both practices. My primary
aim, however, is not to argue for euthanasia, but to identify confusions in some common arguments, and
problematic assumptions and claims that need more defense or data in others. The issues are
considerably more complex than either supporters or opponents often make out; my hope is to advance
the debate by focusing attention on what I believe the real issues under discussion should be.
In the recent bioethics literature some have endorsed physician-assisted suicide but not euthanasia( n4)
Are they sufficiently different that the moral arguments for one often do not apply to the other? A
paradigm case of physician-assisted suicide is a patient’s ending his or her life with a lethal dose of a
medication requested of and provided by a physician for that purpose. A paradigm case of voluntary
active euthanasia is a physician’s administering the lethal dose, often because the patient is unable to
do so. The only difference that need exist between the two is the person who actually administers the
lethal dose–the physician or the patient. In each, the physician plays an active and necessary causal
role.