CPHL509 Bioethics in the New Millennium

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CPHL509Bioethics in the New Millennium

• Euthanasia

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• Battin, Euthanasia The Fundamental Issues
• The case for euthanasia rests on three moral
  principles
• Mercy
• Autonomy
• Justice

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• Mercy
• Two component duties of mercy
• The duty not to cause further pain or suffering
• The duty to act to end pain or suffering already
  occurring

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• 2. Autonomy
• one ought to respect a competent persons
  choices, where one can do so without undue costs
  to oneself, where doing so will not violate other
  moral obligations, and where these choices do not
  threaten harm to other persons or parties. 368

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• 3. Justice
• Euthanasia permits fairer distribution of
  medical resources in a society that lacks
  sufficient resources to provide maximum care for
  all. 372

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• Callahan, When Self-Determination Runs Amok
• What is the moral distinction (if any) between
• Killing
• and
• Allowing to die?

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• Callahan worries about inevitable abuse of a law
  permitting euthanasia. One of his reasons is
  that there is an insurmountable inability to word
  any such law precisely. For example, what
  exactly constitutes
• Unbearable suffering?
• Terminal illness?

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• Keown, Voluntary Euthanasia and Physician
  Assisted Suicide
• Voluntary euthanasia performed with the
  patients consent
• Non-voluntary euthanasia performed when the
  patient is incapable of giving consent
• The slippery slope argument against euthanasia
• The practical form
• The logical form

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• The practical form
• Even if a line can in principle be drawn
  between voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia, a
  slide from one to the other is inevitable because
  in practice the safeguards to prevent it cannot
  be made effective. 390

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• B. The logical form
• No line can be drawn even in principle between
  voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia, because
  the reasons that support the former also support
  the latter.
• Supporters of voluntary euthanasia would agree
  that a doctor shouldnt kill a patient simply
  because the patient requests it.
• ________________
• Regard for patient autonomy is not the ultimate
  support of voluntary euthanasia.

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• Q. What is the ultimate support for voluntary
  euthanasia?
• The doctors judgment that certain patients are
  better off dead.
• But this seems to provide equal support for
  non-voluntary euthanasia, Keown argues.

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