One of the major concerns of opponents to using life support in various situations is the idea that the patient might be suffering in a direct result of keeping him or her alive without consent or even ability to express what their true wish would be, (General Council of the Assemblies of God, 2008). There have been many cases recently where a family was burdened with the painful decision to keep their loved one's on life support or to end the sustaining machines. Several of these cases have unfortunately been exploited by the media, which furthered the pain and confusion of the family members involved.
Additionally, life support also proves to fail those who are suffering from chronic illnesses, (Katz-Wise, 2006). Patients diagnosed with terminal cancer are less likely to benefit from life-support due to their initial diagnoses. Also, patients diagnosed with dementia are sometimes not advised to reap the benefits involved with methodologies of life support, (Katz-Wise, 2006). There are also several other serious risks to individuals due to rash nature of the methods used in life support, "People in a frail condition who receive CPR, mechanical ventilation, or both generally do not have results as good as people who are healthy," (Katz-Wise, 2006).
Yet, there have been recent efforts to pre-discuss such threatening situations in the case of patients who have recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Recent studies have shown that the nature of the illness and/or trauma can lead great insight into the benefits or cons of life support within individual cases, (Katz-Wise, 2006). If an individual patient has more than one medical issue which would prove threatening to sustaining...
Therefore the nature and number of medical conditions should prove influential in each individual's decision to chose life support or not in the event that he or she would need it.
However, the various ethical concerns over life support sometimes fail to compete with the medical benefits of the technical advances which allow doctors to sustain life in order to find a way to restore that life to its former vigor. The benefits of life support for those who need it most are strong. Yet, it does to be very controversial in terms of religious beliefs and personal ethics. As long as we continue to inform the public of the research findings, each individual has more time to tell other what he or she would do, in the event that he or she was placed on life support.
References
American Medical Association. (2007). CSAPH: Report 1 of the Council on Scientific
Affairs. (1-03). AMA.com. 24 May. 2008. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/13567.html
General Council of the Assemblies of God. (2008). Euthanasia, and extraordinary support to sustain life. 24 May. 2008. http://www.ag.org/top/beliefs/contempissues_18_euthanasia.cfm
Katz-Wise, Sabra, L. (2006). Should I receive CPR and medical ventiliation? Quest diagnostics. 24 May. 2008. http://questdiagnostics.com/kbase/dp/topic/tu2951/dp.htm
Medicine Net. (2008). Life support. Medterms online medical dictionary a-z list. 24
May. 2008. http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=38577
