This article was originally published as fifth in a series on Ethical Issues in Terminal Health Care in The Senior Reporter, 1992. It was later reprinted and published in Truth Seeker (Volume 121 No. 5)
PREFACE
Since writing this article in the early 1990's a number of changes have taken place with regard to this issue. Five states and the District of Columbia have approved legislation permitting doctors to assist people in dying, and Montana has had it mandated by the courts. Dozens of states have had legislation introduced to follow suit, and many of those debates are still active. Second, when I read about the debate today, a much less volatile name has been affixed to this practice: Physician Assisted Dying or PAD. The word suicide carries a lot of negative baggage, therefore those who wish to pass legislation wish to have it be more palatable. For additional stats and facts
visit this page.
Ethical Issues in Terminal Health Care
Making The Final Choice: Should Physician-Assisted
Suicide Be Legalized?
Medical advances have created ethical dilemmas which no previous
generation of doctors has ever faced. New life-sustaining techniques
and practices are forcing physicians to ask questions that never
needed to be asked before. Foremost of these is: "How far
do we go to save a life?"
Other questions challenge ethical traditions which have been in
place for centuries. "When suffering is immeasurable and
a patient's condition terminal, should doctors be permitted to
end a patient's life?" "Should doctors take an active
role in hastening a patient's death?"
Today, more than ever, the push is on to "change the rules."
Dr. Kevorkian, while deplored by most medical professionals for
his methods, is heralded as a hero on many fronts for bringing
this issue into the public square. By all accounts a time of decision
is upon us. When a fully conscious person requests death, should
a physician -- contrary to the Hippocratic oath -- assist the
person in dying?
It is the purpose of this brief article to present a concise overview
of the primary arguments for and against the legalization of physician-assisted
suicide. Without a careful consideration of the concerns on both
sides, we can find ourselves saddled with ill-conceived policies
that do not serve our best interests and will not be easily dislodged.
There are four primary arguments for legalizing physician-assisted
suicide. They are:
l. The Mercy Argument, which states that the immense pain and
indignity of prolonged suffering cannot be ignored. We are being
inhumane to force people to continue suffering in this way.
2. The Patient's Right to Self-determination. Patient empowerment
has been a trend for more than twenty-five years. "It's my
life, my pain. Why can't I get the treatment I want?"
3. The Economics Argument, which notes that the cost of keeping
people alive is exceedingly high. Who's footing the bill for the
ten thousand people being sustained in a persistent vegetative
state? Aren't we wasting precious resources when an already used
up life is prolonged unnecessarily?
4. The Reality Argument runs like this: "Let's face it, people
are already doing it."
The combined effect of these four arguments is persuasive. And
many people I talk to have been persuaded by them. They can't
imagine why we have waited so long to make this an alternative
treatment option. The need for legalized physician-assisted suicide
is self-evident, they conclude.
But then, as I present the arguments in opposition to these apparently
self-evident truths, I invariably hear an "A-ha!" and
an "Oh!" and "Well, I never considered..."
And so we give ear to the reverse side of the coin.
THERE ARE A VARIETY OF ARGUMENTS against legalizing physician-assisted suicide. Here are the most widely cited concerns:
l. Medical doctors are not trained psychiatrists. Many, if not
most, people have wished they could die rather than face some
difficult circumstance in their lives. Doctors who are given authority
to grant this wish may not always recognize that the real problem
is a treatable depression, rather than the need to fulfill a patient's
death wish. Perhaps Bob Liston's posting in the General Debate
Forum of America Online said it best when he wrote, "I know
many individuals with significant disabilities: quadriplegia,
post-polio survivors, persons with MS, etc. A number of them have
tried committing suicide in the past and are now thankful that
a mechanism wasn't in place that would have assured their death,
because they got over whatever was bothering them at the time
and are happy with life again."
2. How will physician-assisted suicide be regulated? This is Carlos
Gomez's forced argument, developed after investigating the Netherlands'
experience, and presented in his book Regulating Death. "How
will we assure ourselves that the weak, the demented, the vulnerable,
the stigmatized -- those incapable of consent or dissent -- will
not become the unwilling objects of such a practice? No injustice,"
Gomez contends, "would be greater than being put to death,
innocent of crime and unable to articulate one's interests. It
is the possibility -- or in my estimation, the likelihood -- of
such injustice occurring that most hardens my resistance for giving
public sanction to euthanasia."
3. The "Slippery Slope" Argument. A Hemlock Society
spokesperson acknowledges this to be the strongest argument against
legalization. In ethical dialogue, it is conceded that there are
situations when an acceptable action should not be taken because
it will lead to a course of consequent actions that are not acceptable.
Our attitudes toward the elderly, people with disabilities and
the devaluation of individuals for the "higher good of society"
should be reflected upon. How long will it be before our "right
to die" becomes our "duty to die"?
4. The "Occasional Miracle" Argument. Sometimes remarkable
recoveries occur. Sometimes diagnoses are far afield of the reality.
Countless stories could be told. I know a few first hand. How
about you?
5. Utilitarian versus sacred view of life. This is probably a
subset of the Slippery Slope argument, focusing on our cultural
shift in attitude toward what it means to be human. Huxley's
Brave
New World vividly demonstrates an aspect of this argument. We
need to be reminded of the role social engineers, doctors and
geneticists played in 1930's Germany. Are we important only as
long as we are making a contribution to society? Or is value something
inherent in our being human? History has shown that when we devalue
human beings, we open the door to abuse. The U.S. Supreme Court,
in its Dred Scott decision, declared that blacks were not persons.
This devaluation helped permit slavery and inhumane treatment
of blacks to continue.
6. What effect will this have on doctor/patient trust? People
who traditionally rely on their doctors to provide guidance in
their health care decisions may become confused, even alarmed,
when one of the treatment options presented is the death machine
at the end of the hall. According to Leon R. Kass, distinguished
M.D. from the University of Chicago, the taboo against doctors
killing patients, even on request, "is the very embodiment
of reason and wisdom. Without it, medicine will have lost its
claim to be an ethical and trustworthy profession." Kass
asserts that "patient's trust in the whole-hearted devotion
to the patient's best interests will be hard to sustain once doctors
are licensed to kill."
7. What about doctors who don't believe in killing? Will they
be required by law to prescribe a treatment [death] they don't
believe in?
Conclusions
 |
If we could live forever, in this world,
would we want to? |
The ethical dilemmas surrounding terminal health care
will be with us far into the future. There are more than seventy
million baby boomers in this country, most of whom are currently
grappling with the issue of aging parents. And in the decades
to come we ourselves won't be getting any younger.
Ironically, our current situation is due in large part to the
successes of medical science, not its failures. More people live
longer today than ever in history because we have eliminated many
of the diseases that once terrorized us as a society.
But some of the problem is due in part to our love affair with
technology. When machines, tubes and computers take over, compassion
and common sense sometimes seem to suffer. Fortunately, there
seems to be an increased awareness of the intrusiveness of technology.
Living wills, ethics committees and hospice care are all responses
to this awareness.
How we choose to die in America is a complicated subject that
needs clear thinking and a fair discussion of the ethical and
technical dilemmas surrounding it. But let's keep in mind that
even if we agreed that death technologies are wrong, this would
not be an endorsement of the notion that people must be kept alive
for as long as possible at any cost.
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Any information in this article pertaining to legal or medical
matters is not to be construed as professional advice. Copyrights
remain the property of the author.
RELATED READINGS
Review of Justice Neil Gorsuch's book on this topic.
The Tuskegee Syphilus Experiment
