A Right to Choose Death

A Right to Choose Death

Edith Owens

Kaplan University

HU 280-02: Bioethics

Instructor: Adam Kadiac

May 24th, 2010

Do people have a right to choose death? More importantly are euthanasia and physician-assisted morally permissible?

Euthanasia is death intended to benefit the person who dies. It requires a final act by some other person (for e.g, a doctor,) physician-assisted suicide, requires a final act by the patient, and can also be for the good of that patient. The main point is that both involve intentionally ending a human life: In voluntary euthanasia, the patient and doctor both intend the death, while in physician-assisted suicide, the patient intends the death and the doctor may.

Moral conflict comes into play when thinking of the right to choose death. However, one needs to pay closer attention to the complexities of cases and the specific moral terrain involved. To think about people on medication, being treated by physicians, sometimes relying on technical means to stay alive, and trying to decide how to live out what remains of their lives. Take for instance a doctor is treating a terminally ill patient in sever pain. That pain can only be managed with morphine, but giving the morphine will hasten the patient’s death. With the patient’s consent, the doctor may nevertheless give the morphine. Why? In this case, the greater good for the patient is relief of pain and the lesser evil is loss of life. The patient is terminally ill, and in severe pain, so life would end soon anyway and is not of very good quality. So the patient is overall benefited by having a shorter pain-free life rather than a longer, even more painful life.

In cases such as this where a patient is terminally ill, I think a right to choose death should be granted and...