CPHL509 Bioethics in the New Millennium - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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CPHL509 Bioethics in the New Millennium

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The duty not to cause further ... 'one ought to respect a competent person's choices, where one can do so without ... Unbearable suffering? Terminal illness? ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: CPHL509 Bioethics in the New Millennium


1
CPHL509Bioethics in the New Millennium
  • Euthanasia

2
  • Battin, Euthanasia The Fundamental Issues
  • The case for euthanasia rests on three moral
    principles
  • Mercy
  • Autonomy
  • Justice

3
  • 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

4
  • 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

5
  • 3. Justice
  • Euthanasia permits fairer distribution of
    medical resources in a society that lacks
    sufficient resources to provide maximum care for
    all. 372

6
  • Callahan, When Self-Determination Runs Amok
  • What is the moral distinction (if any) between
  • Killing
  • and
  • Allowing to die?

7
  • 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?

8
  • 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

9
  • 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

10
  • 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.

11
  • 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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