The Business Of Dying Essay Research Paper — страница 4

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today’s society we can joke about death and we can view death on television and in the media, but we still don’t want to think about planning for our own death or the death of those we love. We certainly do not look forward to preparing a documented account of what we would want in an emergency or prolonged life situation. The issues of justice and the right to die with dignity may be growing in intensity, but each individual approaches that universal, common end called death with different religious, philosophical and personal attitudes and values. The legislation passed to protect these rights only made a meager attempt to protect the individual’s rights to prepare for their own death. The Patient Self-Determination Act, which took effect on December 1, 1991, requires all

Medicare/Medicaid health care providers to inform patients of their right to prepare an advance directive and to refuse treatment. The Act is based on principle, which was affirmed in a 1891 case, that “No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of the law” The act was established to ensure that patients, not the family or institutions, make their decisions about their medical treatment. In cases where there is no documented evidence of the individuals wishes, the courts are left to decide them on a case by case basis. Certainly not all cases and patient situations are

not the same. Some interesting points to deliberate may be what considerations we should make for children verses older adults, or pregnant women. With respect to patients in a persistent vegetative state, the evolution legislation and social changes may be the solution. As time passes and our society evolves, further legislation is likely to be passed, thus molding what defines the future right to die issues. If through the evolution, the definition of death were changed to be the death of higher brain functions, a patient in a persistent vegetative state would be considered dead. CHAPTER 4 Death a matter Ethics, Religion or Legal Realism John Stuart Mill established the utilitarian model of ethics. He saw ethical decisions as those that produce the greatest positive balance of

value over negative balance of value for all persons affected. To the novice this means that under utilitarian ethics, an action is morally correct or right when it produces the greatest amount of good for the greatest number and when the action affects the majority adversely it is morally wrong. His views focus on the consequences of an action, not on the nature of the action itself or on any set of preestablished moral values or religious beliefs. The deontological viewpoint of ethics, expressed by Immanuel Kant, states that some acts are wrong and other are right independent of their consequences. American society highly values tolerance of conflicting moral values. It also values the right to the individual to control or govern ones own reasoning and ethical values. While

health care professionals have an inherent ethical obligation to respect the sanctity of life and to provide relief from suffering. Beneficence, autonomy, and justice are accepted moral principles governing the behavior of health care professional within society. With the technological advances in medicine come conflicts between application of moral principles and use of certain types of medical treatment. The decision of which moral principle takes precedence in what situation creates the conflict. The current guidelines written by health care providers and the American Dietetic Association do support the patient’s right to self-determination as the overriding principle. However, the basis for self-determination hang by the single thread that a living will or some sort of

medical power of attorney exists. Religion may be the only institution that comes close to a possessing consensus. While Orthodox Judaism does not accept the idea of “brain death” it does define death as the absence of respiration, cardiac function, and brain function. The Jewish belief supports that the decision to proved care should be based on a reasonable body of medical opinion that care is not required when a case is hopeless. Roman Catholics and some Protestant church authorities have rejected the notion of prolonging life despite quality. While both conclude that prolonging life by artificial means was distinct from euthanasia, they concur that the removal of life support was acceptable if being allowed to die would be better for the patient. In 1992, the National