It is debatable whether PAS is legally permitted or not. In
my opinion, PAS is morally impermissible as the physicians could have the
intention to kill the patients.
Let us consider a case to see whether it is a PAS or not.
The patient suffers from emphysema and related heart problems
and she wants to refuse any forms of hydration and die. She asked the doctor to
support her plan but the physician refuse to do that.
The nature of Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) is enabling suicide
by providing the deadly means that the patients use to kill themselves. If a
doctor provides the deadly means that the patient could use to kill herself, it
is considered PAS due to the nature of it. For example, it is illegal for
doctor to offer any deadly means such as giving the patient a gun or any lethal
medical prescriptions which could cause her to commit suicide. In fact, the
patient did not ask the doctor to give her any lethal prescriptions or other
deadly means and she has not received any deadly means from the doctor. The
doctor has no intention to kill the patient on his part as her physician, he is
not aiding in the intentional self-killing of the patient. Instead, the patient
decides to stop drinking and refuses any form of medical hydration by her free
will. Therefore, doctor’s cooperation should not be considered as PAS due to
the nature of his cooperation.
I think the argument that physicians could have the intention to kill the patients so we should not allow it to happen is flawed. If we give someone a gun, they could have the intention to kill someone but we don't not allow them to own one. Its a calculated risk that we take when we give someone a gun or let a doctor kill someone. They could use the privilege they have for good or do bad things with it, we just don't know.
ReplyDeleteAlso with your originally statement, you are saying is it morally ok or not. This is different from should it be allowed. For example, you can say something like(i think) "it is morally for anyone to own a nuclear bomb." But we do not allow this beacuse we dont trust them. I think that is something to point out there.
I think it is ok to give doctors the right to kill someone. If someone wants to do it they should be able to without having to die some very hard way, for example not allowing themselves to drink any water.
I agree with the comment above. Physician assisted suicide should be legal. These people that would seek it would want to die, and often could cause themselves much pain and suffering if they attempted suicide themselves. By allowing physicians to help these people it reduces pain and suffering in the world and if these people believe in an afterlife it could make them happier going into a planned death that they are going on into whatever they believe they are going into.
ReplyDeletePhysician assisted suicide is similar to a patient refusing a life saving treatment. Although both of these take different routes, they end up in the same destination, death. So, it is okay to allow a physician to assist soemone in suicide if they are already willing to throw away life saving treatment.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, we can also think about how the physician feels about this. Say the physician is having emotional distress over helping someone to die. Say what if the physician is being pressured by the patient to assist in the suicide? So, although the physician would be unwilling to do it himself, he will be obligated to assist the patient if the patients are competent and willing to go through with it. This leads to to the build up of a lot of negative emotions and grief in the physician's mind.