Ethical Reasoning Discussion
Ethical Reasoning Discussion Paper
Ethical Reasoning Discussion Paper
Medical practitioners and all other stakeholders in the medical industry are constantly faced with decisions that affect patients. Qualitative choices require the involved person to be ethical and consider not only the outcome of his career but also to the health status of the patients. Physician-assisted suicide is one of the medical practices that face ethical challenges. While it is paramount for physicians to respect the decision made the patient, it is essential to understand that some patients may feel the need to end their lives for reasons not related to pain from illness.
Physician-assisted suicide is a practice where the clinician intentionally provides information to a person regarding ending life. One of the ethical principals Doctors are obliged to is respect for the patient’s decision. In Physician-assisted suicide, the patient may decide his life to be terminated due to the physical or mental suffering inflicted by the disease. In this case, the physician has no right to decline the patient’s request. Ethical Reasoning Discussion Paper
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Results of surveys done in the United States and The Netherlands reveal that the majority of people who would like their lives to be terminated would want so due to other reasons far from pain and suffering from an illness (Goligher et al., 2017). Such results question the actual meaning of life leading to yet a conflicting ethical theory for the doctors- duty of beneficence and nonmaleficence. In this ethical duty, doctors are required by law to be comforters and healers of life.
While Physician-assisted suicide can be morally acceptable, it should not be legalized as it will create room for people to end their lives due to other reasons apart from the required one. It derails the relevance of human existence and puts physicians at a risk of depression from the act of terminating one’s life.
References
Goligher, E. C., Ely, E. W., Sulmasy, D. P., Bakker, J., Raphael, J., Volandes, A. E., … & White, D. B. (2017). Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Intensive Care Unit: A Dialogue on Core Ethical Issues. Critical care medicine, 45(2), 149. Ethical Reasoning Discussion Paper
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