Rise of Advanced Technologies in the Medical

rise of advanced technologies in the medical field, especially those that sustains life, has brought issues in the ethics and morality of those involved in the field of medicine. Most significant to these issues is the practice of Euthanasia on patients diagnosed to have no chance of surviving and regaining life after any treatment has been implemented. In view of the issues on Euthanasia, this paper aims to present a discussion of this medical practice by analyzing the stands and views of Ned Cassem, James Rachel, Sidney Hook, and Leon R. Kass. This paper also aims to explain the meaning of "good death" as mentioned by Ned Cassem.

On many medical books and dictionaries, "euthanasia" or "mercy-killing" is defined as ending a life of a terminally ill patient by ways such as removing life support machines or stopping treatments that somehow prolongs life. The basic reason why euthanasia is performed on terminally ill patients is to end their prolonged suffering. There are two basic types of euthanasia: passive euthanasia and active euthanasia. Passive euthanasia is the act of discontinuing artificial life support treatments, thus allowing a natural death to take place. This process is sometimes referred to as "pulling the plug." Active euthanasia on the other hand is the direct killing of a patient either by himself, also known as "self-deliverance," or by another person, as in the case of a physician assisting suicide.

Active euthanasia is currently morally forbidden because the intentional killing of a human life is considered as murder. It is forbidden also because it violates the very duty that doctors have to patients -- which is the preservation of life.

The practice of euthanasia leads to many issues and controversies regarding its morality and legality. Many are concerned whether it is morally permissible to end a person's life in the practice of medicine.

GOOD DEATH"

Ned Cassem, a psychiatrist and a Jesuit priest, who heads the Optimum Care Committee at Massachusetts General views that patients who are candidate for euthanasia are entitled to have a "good death."

Optimum Care Committee is a group of doctors and nurses who helps terminally ill patients and their families cope up with the thorny issues of euthanasia. Their concern is in the psychological aspects that would bring the patients or their families when euthanasia is necessary or applicable. They also patiently talk of the issues that would help a patient's family come up to any decision on matters relating to euthanasia.

In the article "Ending a Life," Ned Cassem defines "good death" as "...one in which the person was able to depart with maximum acknowledgement of the importance and meaningfulness of their having been among us." (Stein, Charles. Ending a Life.)

Here, Cassem is concerned in making the dying person feel his worth in the life he lived and for the people he is about to leave. As with the author's understanding of the meaning of "good death" every time the doctors and nurses often say "It was a good death." Or "It was a beautiful death," Stein said that a good death seems to be one in which the dying put their affairs in order, come together with their family and friends, and resolve lingering conflicts.

For Cassem, a good death involves the presence of human relationship. Whether from a faithful spouse or primary caregiver of 50 years, or the new face and name of the attending nurse, emotional care is as essential as physical comfort. A kind smile or a sobbing embrace is often as pain relieving as any drug or surgical procedure, depending upon the degree of emotional distress affecting the physical well being of a person. Cassem demonstrated this when he tried to know something about an elderly woman who was bitter in life. Through some conversations, Cassem then realized that the woman was a former Olympian. This then made her known in the hospital as the former Olympian.

THE DIFFERENT VIEWS ON EUTHANASIA

In the article "Ending a Life," Ned Cassem and his Optimum Care Committee support the practice of euthanasia. They provide consultation to patients and families by giving them moral support on making decisions regarding ending a life. This service of Cassem and the committee somehow exercises compassion to involved parties.

As with Cassem, in the article "In Defense of Voluntary Euthanasia" by Sidney Hook, Hook argues that euthanasia is compassionate. Based from his life-threatening experience, in which he vividly describes in his essay the pain he suffered from a congestive heart failure, Hook's case for euthanasia argues for the release of sufferings of a terminally ill patient into death. He supports euthanasia and represents the view that assisted suicide should be a legal option for the patient.

To some extent, my views reflect what I have seen happen to the aged and stricken who have been so unfortunate as to survive crippling paralysis. They suffer, and impose suffering on others, unable even to make a request that their torment be ended," says Hook. Saying that surviving paralysis is unfortunate only implies that Hook prefers ending the suffering of being crippled than inflicting another suffering on other's lives.

Contrary to Sidney Hook's support in euthanasia is Leon R. Kass's active pursuit against euthanasia, specifically active euthanasia. Kass offered his philosophy on physician-assisted suicide, mercy killing, and euthanasia with a series of logical questions and reasons supporting his belief that doctors must not allow their patients to take their lives or aid them in the process.

Throughout the article, Kass emphasized consistently that doctors are needed to treat the "whole patient" and minister to their needs as human being. Kass believed that doctors contradict the Hippocratic Oath they take on becoming doctors of medicine if they extend in assisting in or allowing their patient to take his or her own life. According to Kass, the practice of physician-assisted suicide violates the "pureness and holiness of the medical profession" as well as the ethics doctors consider when choosing the goals of their profession.

Kass also questions the criteria used by doctors to determine if a patient is "ready for death" by mercy killing. He discussed that patients who wish to undergo physician-assisted suicide are often clinically depressed and unable to make clear decisions due to pain and mental depression. He mentioned that a patient's self-perception is exceptionally low during terminal illness.

Kass stated that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide forces doctors' concerns with learning the "limits of life and death" into opposition with the perception of patients' dignity and autonomy. Kass felt that a patient's dignity cannot be "injected in a drug," and mercy killing consequently obstructed doctors' efforts to aid their patients' recovery.

In contrast to Kass's stand, James Rachels shows his favor on active euthanasia. In his article "Active and Passive Euthanasia," James Rachels discusses his disagreement with the use of a distinction between active and passive euthanasia, and explains that active euthanasia should be morally preferable than passive euthanasia. Rachels hopes to convince doctors that separating active and passive euthanasia is inadequate to distinguish that passive euthanasia is morally preferable. He argues that if euthanasia is morally acceptable, then to distinguish active as less acceptable is inadequate.