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Flashcards in Euthanasia Deck (47)
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1
Q

What is physician-assited suicide?

A

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.

2
Q

What is active euthanasia?

A

medication is given with the express purpose of shortening someone’s life

3
Q

What is passive euthanasia?

A

The withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, leading to someone’s death.

4
Q

What is voluntary euthanasia?

A

When the patient makes a specific choice to die.

5
Q

What is non-voluntary euthanasia?

A

where the patient is not in a position to make a choice, e.g. in a Persistent Vegetative State

6
Q

What is in-voluntary euthanasia?

A

When the patient does not want to die.

7
Q

What is UK law on Euthanasia?

A

In the Uk in 2006, euthanasia is illegal, but doctors can withdraw treatment even without specific consent

8
Q

What are the issues with Euthanasia?

A

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?

9
Q

What are the issues if euthanasia is legalised?

A

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.

10
Q

What are the issues about whether it is wrong to kill?

A

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’?

11
Q

What are the issues of whether killing is the same as letting someone die?

A

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?

12
Q

What are the issues of whether we have a right to die?

A

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.

13
Q

What was the case study of Dax Cowart?

A

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.

14
Q

What happened in the case study of Dianne Pretty?

A

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.

15
Q

What happened in the case study of Dr Jake Kevorkian?

A

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.

16
Q

What happened in the case study of Tony Bland in 1989?

A

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.

17
Q

What happened in the case study of Dr Nigel Cox in 1992?

A

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.

18
Q

What happened in the case of Mary Ormerod in 1995?

A

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.

19
Q

What happened in the case study of Annie Lindsell in 1997?

A

Annie Lindsell died of motor neurone disease in December 1997. Her greatest fear was the prospect of suffocating or choking to death when breathing and swallowing became difficult. With only weeks to live, she asked the High Court to rule that if this happened, her doctor could intervene and administer diamorphine - without fear of prosecution - even if it might shorten her life.
She withdrew the case in October 1997 after she established the principle that doctors could legally administer life-shortening drugs for the relief of mental as well as physical distress. She was assured that her doctor would not allow her to suffer unneccesarily and a treatment plan was agreed which followed best medical practice.

20
Q

What happened in the case study of Dr Moor in 1998?

A

Dr Moor was charged with the murder of George Liddell, an 85-year-old terminally ill cancer patient. However, while he admitted giving Mr Liddell a dose of diamorphine, Dr Moor said he had only done so to relieve pain, not to kill him. Dr Moor admitted to the media to administering a lethal dose of drugs to many patients, he also admitted that he had done so within days of giving the interview. After his acquittal in May 1999, he said he would do it all over again.
The verdict established once and for all that doctors who administer drugs to relieve pain are acting within the law, whether or not the patient dies as a result.

21
Q

What happened in the case study of Miss B in 2002?

A

A woman known as “Miss B”, who was paralysed from the neck down, died peacefully in her sleep on 29 April 2002 after winning the legal right to have medical treatment withdrawn. Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the High Court family division, ruledthat Miss B had the “necessary mental capacity to give consent or to refuse consent to life-sustaining medical treatment”. It was the 43-year-old former social care professional’s case that it was her decision, not her doctors’, whether the ventilator which kept her alive should be switched off.
In a landmark ruling, Dame Elizabeth gave Miss B the right to be transferred to another hospital and be treated in accordance with her wishes, including drug treatment and care to “ease her suffering and permit her life to end peacefully and with dignity”.

22
Q

In what way would Utilitarianism figure out whether Euthanasia was the right course of action?

A

Bentham’s Hedonic Calculus can be used to weigh up the pleasure and pain caused by two courses of action - in this case, helping someone to die, or not doing so. Bentham would consider the Intensity of the pain and its Duration. He would have to weigh that against the number of people affected (Extent), and consider whether keeping someone alive woud lead to other pleasures (Richness). He would also need to add up the amount of other ‘pains’ the patient would face e.g. loss of dignity (Purity), and consider the chances that there’ might be a cure or treatment in the future (Certainty). The pain is immediate, while possible future benefits are Remote.

23
Q

Why would utilitarianism support euthanasia?

A

In most cases, the degree of pain is so great that Bentham’s theory would support euthanasia. Mill would also have supported euthanasia, as he believed in the sovereignty of the individual - despite the principle of utility, if I’m harming no-one else, I can do what I please.

24
Q

How would Mill’s distinction between higher and lower pleasures impact his belief about euthanasia?

A

Mill would see little benefit in continuing your life if your mind wasn’t working properly. However, in the case of physical disability, if someone’s mind was working than they could still live a happy life.

25
Q

In what way would Kantian ethics be opposed to euthanasia?

A

You get closer to what Kant would have said himself if you consider another statement of the Categorical Imperative - that we should act according to maxims that we would make into laws of nature. Here, it seems irrelevant what a person chooses. If we decide that a person in a particular physical state should, naturally, die, they would die regardless of their wishes. We could not will this - it is a contradiction of the will as the person has not chosen to die. The last statement of the Categorical Imperative says we should not use people merely as a means to an end. Kant may have said that killing someone to end their pain was using them to another end. Kant himself was strongly against any form of suicide, and would have argued against euthanasia.

26
Q

In what way would Kantian ethics support euthanasia?

A

They could argue that you can include what a person chooses in a law of nature. Some people believe that people can die when they lose the ‘will to live’. It may not be too hard to imagine someone wanting to die being a factor in their death according to laws of nature. Other Kantians might argue that a person’s ends are best served by ending their misery.

27
Q

In what way could Natural Law oppose euthanasia?

A

One of the primary precepts is to ‘protect and preserve the innocent’. It is therefore a secondary precept and an absolute moral rule that you should never kill an innocent person. It would seem that euthanasia is always wrong. You couldn’t argue for assisted suicide, as the same principle would outlaw killing oneself even if you could justify helping someone to die , which is unlikely.

28
Q

How could the principle of double effect support euthanasia?

A

It is wrong to kill, but is it wrong to give someone pain relief if a secondary effect is that they die? Once you accept that death is merely a by-product of another action, you are asking a very different question. You are asking ‘Is death a proportionate outcome?’
In other words, while Natural Law clearly doesn’t support active euthanasia, it may well allow an action whose intention is merely to relieve pain, even if the action leads to death.

29
Q

Why would situation ethics support euthanasia?

A

Situation Ethics is easy to apply here. Quite simply, you can dispense with rules about killing, because the most loving thing to do may well be to give someone a peaceful death. Situation Ethics is Personal - it puts people before rules. It is also Pragmatic, allowing us to do whatever works best in the circumstances. What is the use in keeping someone alive to suffer?
Relativism is at the heart of the theory.

30
Q

Why is situation ethics difficult to apply to legalism in regards to Euthanasia?

A

Situation Ethics isn’t helpful when it comes to legislation, largely because the situation ethicist would ignore any rules that were made anyway if the situation demanded it. Situationists may well be worried that a law that allowed euthanasia might put pressure on people who didn’t want to die. They might argue that there need to be great safeguards against the misuse of any euthanasia rules. However, they are likely to argue in favour of allowing euthanasia. A situation ethicist would probably say that, even if euthanasia was not allowed, it may well be right to break the law and help someone to die.

31
Q

Why would Aristotle appear to support euthanasia?

A

People suffering greatly from illness would not be living a eudaimon life. If there was a way to improve their physical well-being, Aristotle would support this. However, where someone is incurably and terminally ill, Aristotle might hope that they would have the courage to accept their fortune. He would say that person achieving eudaimonia would have the wisdom and judgement to make the right decision.
Aristotle was concerned with the good for society above the individual. In those cultures where resources are scarce, euthanasia may well make a huge difference on the well-being of society as a whole. Under these circumstances, it may be a courageous, noble act for someone to take their own life when very ill.

32
Q

Why would virtue ethics be against euthanasia?

A

COWARDICE (VICE OF DIFICIENCY)
Euthanasia could be seen as an easy way out
RASHNESS (VICE OF EXCESS)
Euthanasia could be seen as killing someone without considering the implications

33
Q

What virtues within virtue ethics would be for euthanasia?

A

COURAGE (GOLDEN MEAN)
Euthanasia could be seen as an act of courage to assist someone you love to die
VIRTUE OF JUSTICE
It could be argued that the situation in which someone wishes to die but is unable to kill themselves is unjust. If someone was to assist their death therefore, they could be seen as just – and since justice is a virtue they could be seen as helping humanity to progress towards Aristotle’s Eudaimonia.

34
Q

What would MacIntyre say about euthanasia?

A

MacIntyre is a relativist virtue ethicist. He might argue that in Britain we are moving towards a change in law regarding euthanasia. However, MacIntyre might explain why other countries, particularly Roman Catholic and Muslim countries, are likely to strongly resist any weakening of the law regarding the ending of human life. Macintyre will not say whether it is right to allow euthanasia - he will just explain the decisions people make in terms of the context in which those decisions arise.

35
Q

What is the view of the Roman Catholic Church on euthanasia?

A

The Roman Catholic Church is completely against euthanasia, seeing it in the same light as murder. The Catholic Church supports starting a patient on a course of pain-killing drugs which may eventually lead to the patient’s death (double effect). The intent has to be to reduce pain, however, and this only counts in cases where the risk of death is proportionate to the pain relief achieved. The Catholic Church believes that ordinary treatments (such as feeding a patient) may not be discontinued, but extra-ordinary measures (like complicated operations) need not be undertaken to save the patient’s life.

36
Q

What does the Catholic catechism say?

A

“2280: Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for His honour and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.” Catechism

37
Q

What does the Church of England say about euthanasia?

A

The Church of England disagrees with euthanasia. They echo the Roman Catholic Church in their belief in the sanctity of human life. However, they also teach that it is not always right to strive to keep a patient alive for as long as possible regardless of their quality of life.

38
Q

What is the quote from the church of England about euthanasia?

A

God himself has given to humankind the gift of life. As such, it is to be revered and cherished. Those who become vulnerable through illness or disability deserve special care and protection. We do not accept that the right to personal autonomy requires any change in the law in order to allow euthanasia. Church of England 1999

39
Q

What does the Salvation Army say about euthanasia?

A

The Salvation Army believes that people do not have the right to death by their own decision…Only God is sovereign over life and death…the grace of God can sustain through any ordeal or adversity.

40
Q

What did the orthodox church say on the topic of Euthanasia is 1966?

A

The Orthodox Church opposes murder, whether it be suicide, euthanasia or whatever, and regardless if it is cloaked in terms like ‘death with dignity.’ A person contemplating ending it all because of despondency instead should turn to God for strength and support. The Book of Job serves as a prime example of how someone overcomes extreme suffering by staying focused on God.

41
Q

What does Philippa Foot ask about euthanasia?

A

Philippa Foot asks the question; is there really a moral difference between killing and allowing to die when they both come to the same consequence?

42
Q

What are the differences in how teleological and deontological theories would approach euthanasia?

A

Teleological theories concentrate the on end – death – and are not concerned with the means to that end, and therefore do not distinguish between active and passive euthanasia. Deontological theories however are more concerned with the means than the end and do differentiate between the two.

43
Q

What is the law on care and treatment?

A

In the UK, specific treatment may be refused by patients but care by hospital staff must always be given. However, the courts always debate as to whether there is a difference between care and treatment.

44
Q

What does Glover say about euthanasia?

A

Glover’s anti-euthanasia stance concentrates on the value of life. Glover uses the example in which there are two planets; on one a single vegetable grows and on the other there is no sign of life and no form of life can ever be achieved. We must destroy one planet. Those who chose to save the planet with the vegetable recognise that life has intrinsic value.

45
Q

What bible versus are against euthanasia?

A

Genesis 1:27: God created Humans in his image
Genesis 1:28: God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number
Genesis 9:6 :‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made them.’
-Psalm 139:13 :For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb
‘Thou shall not kill’

46
Q

What are the arguments for euthanasia?

A
  • You have the right to life, so why shouldn’t you have the right to death?
  • Euthanasia may be the kindest or most loving thing to do in a situation
  • You must respect other people’s desires
  • People are rightfully entitled to a pain-free death and a death with dignity
47
Q

What are the arguments against euthanasia?

A
  • God gave us life as a gift, so we should we have the right to take it away again?
  • Killing in all circumstances is wrong
  • Allowing Euthanasia only in exceptional circumstances leads to the slippery slope argument – it will eventually lead to the universal application of the right to euthanasia in all circumstances