Bioethics -- Assisted Suicide THREE-STEP MODEL-BASED ETHICAL ANALYSIS OF ASSISTED SUICIDE

Introduction

Assisted suicide, or euthanasia, is a controversial topic because it contradicts one of the most fundamental values of American and other Judeo-Christian teaching: namely, that human life is sacred. Similarly, in medicine, euthanasia violates the Hippocratic Oath, according to which the first ethical obligation of doctors is to do no harm. However, in modern society, that traditional prohibition against assisting others end their lives has increasingly been challenged, most notably, in connection with the highly-publicized efforts of the late physician Jack Kevorkian who willingly served a prison sentence for violating the criminal statutes prohibiting assisted suicide in Michigan. In addition to legal issue, the concept of euthanasia also raises important issues in relation to balancing various other ethical concerns and it challenges the deeply-held beliefs and personal reactions of many people. The Three-Step Ethical Model provides an analytical approach that addresses all of these issues.

Application of Three-Step Ethical Model

Legal Issues

In the United States, euthanasia is illegal in all 50 states and subjects physicians who administer medication to terminate the life of a patient to criminal prosecution and penal incarceration (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009). Several states have exempted physician-assisted dying, which involves a physician prescribing medication and advising dying patients in the process of ending their own lives but still strictly prohibits physicians from administering the medication or otherwise participating in the process directly (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009). The principal legal argument against the continued illegal status of physician-assisted suicide in the U.S. is a function of the fact that the original basis for the notion of the sanctity of human life in relation to suicide is religious philosophy and belief. Meanwhile, the concept of...

Constitution (Dershowitz, 2002). More specifically, the establishment clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing any religion and the infringement clause prohibits the government from interfering with the religious practices of individuals. Therefore, the argument against the government prohibition of euthanasia when it is desired by a patient is that it constitutes establishment of religion on the part of the government (Dershowitz, 2002).
Naturally, there is a legitimate legal justification for government regulation of assisted suicide to prevent abuse of patients, as well as to ensure that patients seeking to end their lives are mentally competent and capable of making those types of decisions as a matter of law (George, Finlay & Jeffrey, 2005). On the other hand, it is difficult to find an objective legal justification for prohibiting a mentally competent patient to choose to terminate his or her life with the assistance of a physician, especially when the reason is that the patient is either already dying or suffering from intractable pain that cannot be treated effectively.

Balance of Ethical Concerns

The principal ethical concerns raised by the concept of euthanasia in the form of physician-assisted suicide at the request of patients are patient rights and patient autonomy (Levine, 2008). In principle, the ethical argument supporting the right of adult patients who are mentally competent to direct their medical care more generally is simply that there is no objective basis for government or anybody else ever to second-guess or thwart their autonomous decisions. The Hippocratic Oath does prohibit physicians from harming their patients, but it was conceived two thousand years ago, and long before Hippocrates could have imagined the complexities of modern medicine. Today, it is possible to definitively identify terminal conditions that physicians…