Euthanasia
Course Project Milestone: Annotated Bibliography
Euthanasia
March 31, 2022
The personal and/or communal ethical factors that may be involved in determining the moral position of either side would be that an ethical egoist would consider the benefit of self-interest because they ultimately want to amplify and maximize a person’s self-interest, self-guard and egocentricity. However, being so, that means if an individual chooses that they want to end their suffering, this action would then ultimately maximize and acknowledge the individuals self-interest and honor their wishes
Euthanasia has been known for in other terms as a good death or PAS, which is a physician assisted suicide. Physician assisted suicide is a method that is used to for individuals that are terminally ill, in debilitating discomfort and those who ultimately chooses to no longer suffer anymore or endure additional mental and physical stress. However, euthanasia is illegal in the majority of the United States
However, it is legal in Washington, California, Vermont, Hawaii, Oregon, Colorado, and Montana. Many individuals often contemplate euthanasia because the person is dying and suffering from an incurable disease and or suffering from dementia which they experience severe confusion, memory loss, poor judgment. They also have impaired cognitive issues which includes but is not limited to difficulty speaking and expressive aphasia, reading and writing, understanding and expressing thoughts, as well as receptive aphasia. They in addition, encounter challenges of unconsciously wandering and getting lost in a familiar neighborhood.
The society is divided philosophically, legally, and medically with the dilemma created by euthanasia. Who are we to deny someone the right to die, denying the right would be ignoring their pain, suffering and hardships. Denying them would be violating their autonomy as a patient. A person whose situation and desires change, however, does not thereby become a different person. Even if the desires in question are not the product of one’s social environment but instead arise from one’s physiology, they are still inessential to the person who has them. A person who likes caviar, but dislikes lobster would not become a different person if he were to acquire a taste for lobster and lose his taste for caviar.” (Stacey, T. 2017).
Kant believed that the rightness or wrongness of actions does not merely depend on their consequences but whether on if they fulfill our duty. Kant also believed that there was a supreme principle of morality which he referred to as the categorical imperative which implied that moral reasons in fact override all and other sorts of reasons, because knowledge could be a combination between thoughts and concepts as well as the contents of one’s mind and their intuition. “Kant and others have conceived that ethics initially requires an analysis of our moral concepts. We must understand the concepts of a “good will”, “obligation”, “duty” and so on, as well as their logical relationships to one another, before we can determine whether our use of these concepts is justified”. (Johnson & Cureton, 2022).
Finally, the majority of terminally ill patients or patients with incurable diseases or someone who cannot sustain life anymore rights should be respected and their dying wishes should be granted and able be to end their life at their discretion. We are wired to perform and do everything that we could to save a life and or preserve life or what is left of it. Though, we fail to realize and understand that euthanasia plays an important role in our healthcare society, because this is a way to prevent pointless suffering and financial burdens for the patient and their families.
If medical professionals, practices, and machines fail to heal a patient, improve a patients health, and restore their wellbeing to optimal health then the patient should be allowed choose their plan of care and choice to live or not live, instead of facing elongated suffering.
ANOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Critser, Rebecca. “Assisted Suicide: Is the Cruzan ‘Unqualified State Interest in the Preservation of Human Life’ a Legitimate State Interest?” NAELA Journal 13, no. 2 (Fall 2017): 71–95.
When reading this student article, Critser looks closely at one of the state interests identified in Glucksberg, that of an “unqualified interest in the preservation of human life,” which first arose in the earlier U.S. Supreme Court case of Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health. 31 She discusses the guidelines for identifying a legitimate state interest and evaluates their application in Glucksberg, Cruzan, and other cases to address the terms and conditions of end-of-life care.
Legault, Melissa. “‘I Don’t Want to Die, But I Am Dying’: Reexamining Physician Assisted Suicide in a New Age of Substantive Due Process.” Arizona Law Review 60, no. 2 (Summer 2018): 509–37.
In this article the student pointed out that contends that Glucksberg represented an “interruption of the trajectory” (p.512) of significant due process pertaining to the law. This came about because all of the cases that were both preceding and following Glucksberg have stressed “protecting personal autonomy, protecting intimate decisions, and maintaining dignity” (p.513), as opposed to Glucksberg’s focus on “history and tradition” (p.522), in recognizing fundamental constitutional rights such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Legault had proposed a new test for substantive due process which could then result in the U.S. Supreme Court’s eventual recognition of a fundamental right to physician assisted suicide
Benassini, Michael. “A Proposal for Proper Procedure: The Aid-in-Dying Process for Californians with Disabilities.” U.C. Davis Law Review 51, no. 4 (April 2018): 1717–50.
This student argues for the insufficiency of the California Department of Developmental Services’ emergency regulations, adopted in response to the End of Life Option Act’s passage, that had limited the access to available legal aid-in-dying procedures for California “residential patients” with developmental disabilities.
Burman, John M., and Cameron T. Pestinger. “Implementing Provider Aid in Dying in Wyoming.” Wyoming Law Review 17, no. 1 (2017): 1–21.
Burman and Pestinger had argued that whilst there was a 2012 amendment to the Wyoming state constitution which meant that Wyoming adults may and could already legally choose provider aid in dying, this right should still be codified in state law. They provide proposed legislation for the state legislature’s consideration.
Svenson, Arthur G. “Physician-Assisted Dying and the Law in the United States: A Perspective on Three Prospective Futures.” In Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Global Views on Choosing to End Life, edited by Michael J. Cholbi, 3–28. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2017.
The author had discussed three possible avenues that led toward an expanded legalization of physician-assisted dying in the United States: state laws, state courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court. First, he examined the effect of the passage of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act and the later passage of similar laws in Vermont and California. Next, he looks at examples of successful court challenges to state laws criminalizing physician-assisted dying where he compared and analyzed the issues that were involved with were “judicially driven legalization” (p.18). In the end, he evaluates the likelihood of the Supreme Court someday abolishing its decisions in Glucksberg and Vacco.
Shibata, Benjamin. “An Ethical Analysis of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide: Rejecting Euthanasia and Accepting Physician Assisted Suicide with Palliative Care.” Journal of Legal Medicine 37, nos. 1–2 (January-June 2017): 155–66.
Shibata had evaluated the ethical and moral permissibility of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide via the medical principles of autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice, as well as the patient rights versus physician obligations implicated by assisted dying. He also suggested that already existing laws should include a requirement that a patient seeking to access physician-assisted suicide consult with a palliative care physician for evaluation and patient education, in order to provide certain patients with additional options for care and comfort.
REFERENCES
Taylor, J. Stacey (2017, June 20). autonomy. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/autonomy
Johnson, Robert and Adam Cureton, “Kant’s Moral Philosophy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .
Rachels, S., & Rachels, J. (2019). The elements of moral philosophy (9th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Critser, Rebecca. “Assisted Suicide: Is the Cruzan ‘Unqualified State Interest in the Preservation of Human Life’ a Legitimate State Interest?” NAELA Journal 13, no. 2 (Fall 2017): 71–95.
Legault, Melissa. “‘I Don’t Want to Die, But I Am Dying’: Reexamining Physician Assisted Suicide in a New Age of Substantive Due Process.” Arizona Law Review 60, no. 2 (Summer 2018): 509–37.
Benassini, Michael. “A Proposal for Proper Procedure: The Aid-in-Dying Process for Californians with Disabilities.” U.C. Davis Law Review 51, no. 4 (April 2018): 1717–50.
Burman, John M., and Cameron T. Pestinger. “Implementing Provider Aid in Dying in Wyoming.” Wyoming Law Review 17, no. 1 (2017): 1–21.
Svenson, Arthur G. “Physician-Assisted Dying and the Law in the United States: A Perspective on Three Prospective Futures.” In Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Global Views on Choosing to End Life, edited by Michael J. Cholbi, 3–28. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2017.
Shibata, Benjamin. “An Ethical Analysis of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide: Rejecting Euthanasia and Accepting Physician Assisted Suicide with Palliative Care.” Journal of Legal Medicine 37, nos. 1–2 (January-June 2017): 155–66.
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