Physician-assisted suicide and active euthanasia

Ethics

Physician-Assisted Suicide and Active Euthanasia

In January of 1983, twenty-five-year-old Nancy Beth Cruzan lost control of her car. The final diagnosis projected she suffered anoxia pr deprivation of oxygen for twelve to fourteen minutes. It is known that generally after six minutes of oxygen deprivation, the brain generally suffers permanent damage. At the time of the U.S. Supreme Court hearing in 1990, Cruzan was able to breathe on her own but was being feed by way of a feeding tube. Doctors had surgically implanted the feeding tube about a month after the accident, subsequent to the consent of her then-husband. Medical experts diagnosed Cruzan to be in a permanent vegetable state, capable of living another thirty years (Courts and the End of Life - The Case of Nancy Cruzan, 2011).

This was the first time the right-to-die issue had been brought before the U.S. Supreme Court, which chose not to rule on whether Cruzan's parents could have her feeding tube removed, but instead, it considered whether the U.S. Constitution prohibited the state of Missouri from calling for clear and convincing evidence that an incompetent person wishes withdrawal of life supporting treatment. In a five-to-four decision the Supreme Court found that the U.S. Constitution did not forbid the state of Missouri from wanting convincing evidence that an incompetent person wants life supporting treatment taken away. The court majority ruled that the State's meticulous requirement of clear and convincing evidence that Cruzan had declined termination of life supporting treatment was warranted (Courts and the End of Life - The Case of Nancy Cruzan, 2011).

The Court felt that they had to be very careful in making this decision due to the fact that an erroneous decision may lead to a consequence that could not be reversed. If it could not be determined for certain that Cruzan would want to be taken off of the life support then the court felt that this was not something that could be allowed to happen. If the court had ruled that clear and convincing evidence was not needed to determine that the patient would want to be removed from the life support this would have set up circumstances where people could be euthanized potentially against their will, which would not be considered to be ethical. In the article Active and Passive Euthanasia by Rachels, the author identified the conventional doctrine on the morality of euthanasia. This doctrine allows passive euthanasia but does not allow active euthanasia. Basically this is saying that it is alright to let someone die if that is what is eventually going to happen anyway, but it is not alright to do something to help someone die. And this is the way that it should be. No one should be allowed to decide whether someone else is going to die or not. Death is a natural occurrence and should be left that way. This same sentiment was also made by Callahan in the article Killing and Allowing to Die. This author maintains that there is a valid distinction between killing and allowing dying, and he defends the distinction by reference to three overlapping perspectives, metaphysical, moral and medical.