Ok, last one for today:
Doctor-Assisted Suicide (Euthanasia)
(1) Mary, a 67-year-old smoker living in Holland, has inoperable throat cancer. She will likely suffocate from airway obstruction within six weeks due to tumor growth and/or bleed to death from erosion of the tumor into a major blood vessel. She is in intense pain and can barely swallow. She asks her doctor, "Will you help me when the time comes?" A few days later, the patient's adult daughter phones the doctor to report that the pain is worse and swallowing is impossible: "She is ready to go." The doctor knows that he has the medical means to relieve his patient's suffering by administering barbiturates and a lethal injection.
(2) Susan, a 67-year-old smoker hospitalized in the United States, has inoperable lung cancer. She requires a ventilator to assist her breathing and is expected to die within six weeks from widely metastatic lung cancer. Susan is alert and has written instructions (advance directive) stating that she does not want to be kept alive by machines at the end of her life. She requests that her doctor remove her from the ventilator (refusal of medical care), even if that means that she will die sooner.
Should the doctor help either patient die? What are the alternatives?
Is there an ethical difference between withholding or withdrawing treatment (passive euthanasia) and causing death by physician-assisted suicide (active euthanasia)?
What ethical values compete or conflict in this case?
Holland and Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide under strict conditions. Knowing that refusal of medical care is legal in the United States, do you think that physician-assisted suicide should become legal too?
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