An Overview of Euthanasia (PAS)

1. An Overview of Euthanasia (PAS) Rachael Quesenberry

2. What is it? • Euthanasia: • Painless death • Mercy killing • The act of allowing death if something or someone is in extreme suffering

3. "The word euthanasia was coined from the Greek language ... in the seventeenth century by Francis Bacon to refer to an easy, painless, happy death. In modern times it has come to mean the active causation of a patient's death by a physician, usually through the injection of a lethal dose of medication.“ • Kathleen Foley, MD, Professor at the Department of Neurology

4. Physician-Assisted Death (PAD) • Also referred to as physician-assisted suicide • Whenever a patient, to end their own suffering, request euthanasia from a doctor & will: • Be given medication, then told what amount to take for death to occur, so they may do it themselves

5. Voluntary Active Euthanasia • "Intentionally administering medications to cause the patient's death at the patient's request and with full, informed consent.“ • When the patient requests death and the doctor administers it

6. Passive Euthanasia • Letting someone die • Not helping to support someone’s life • “Pulling the plug”

7. Non-voluntary Euthanasia • When the person cannot make the decision themselves • Patient is: • In a coma • Too young • Senile • Mentally retarded to a very severe extent • Severely brain damaged • Mentally disturbed in such a way that they should be protected from themselves

8. The Issues Debated Pro Con • Right to die • People deserve the right to avoid excruciating pain and to embrace a dignified death • Patient suffering at End-of-Life • People should be allowed the right to live without suffering. • Right to die • This is not defendable as a fundamental liberty interest through the due process clause • Patient Suffering at End-of-Life • This is not government-mandated suffering. • Laws are in place to prevent abuse of a person’s rights by doctors or spouses.

9. What is the Hippocratic Oath? • An oath encompassing the duties and responsibilities of a physician • Most students graduating medical school take the oath • Like a code of ethics

10. Hippocratic Oath Today • I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: • I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures (that) are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’ s drug. I will not ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in the matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain an member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long to experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

11. How does euthanasia affect the Hippocratic Oath? • “Most especially must I tread with care in the matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.” • Doctors could be considered as going against the ethics of their career and be fired or penalized for assisting in a patient’s suicide.

12. U.S. Supreme Court Decisions of Assisted Suicide

13. Washington v. Glucksberg (1997) • Dr. Harold Glucksberg and 3 other doctors, 3 terminally ill patients and an organization (Compassion in Dying) filed suit in federal court that Washington State’s assisted suicide ban was unconstitutional if applied to terminally ill, mentally competent adults. • The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided that Washington’s ban was not unconstitutional.

14. Vacco v. Quill (1997) • Dr. Quill, along with 2 other physicians and 3 terminally ill persons, challenged the assisted suicide ban in New York. They alleged it violated the due-process liberty and equal protection guarantees of the 14th amendment. • U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the ban did notviolate the 14th amendment.

15. Gonzales v. Oregon (2006) • The Oregon Death with Dignity Act grants civil & criminal immunity to physicians who dispense or prescribe a lethal dose of drugs upon the request of a terminally ill patient. • In 2001, the U.S. attorney general issued an Interpretive Rule to address the enforcement of the federal Controlled Substance Act. • He declared that using controlled substances to assist suicide was not a “legitimate medical purpose” and that it was unlawful under the CSA.

16. A physician, a pharmacist and some terminally ill state residents challenged the interpretive rule in Oregon. • Supreme Court held that the CSA does not allow the attorney general to prohibit physicians from prescribing federally regulated drugs for physician-assisted suicide.

17. Sources • Euthanasia ProCon.org -- Should Euthanasia Be Legal? Web. 23 May 2011. <http://euthanasia.procon.org/>.g