Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: The Pharmacist's Perspective

2000 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark E. Schneiderhan
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Lethal Dose ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Critical Position ◽  
End Of Life Decisions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Pharmaceutical Agents ◽  
Special Responsibility

Pharmacists are in a critical position when pharmaceutical agents are prescribed for the purpose of physician-assisted suicide and/or euthanasia and they may need to decide whether dispensing a lethal dose of a medication is ethically and morally acceptable for a patient. In many cases, pharmacists may not even be aware that prescriptions are intended for physician-assisted suicide and/or euthanasia. Pharmacists have a special responsibility to protect patients who are contemplating end-of-life decisions such as physician- assisted suicide and euthanasia. Pharmaceutical care (“Responsible provision of drug therapy for the purpose of achieving definite outcomes that improve a patient's quality of life … ”) requires that the pharmacist not only understands the medications but also the individual patient and the complexities of their lives and suffering. Only in this way can pharmacists provide safe and effective use of medications for the patients they serve.

scholarly journals Euthanasia and suicide: a medical and social discourse

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-112
Author(s):  
V. N. Ostapenko ◽  
I. V. Lantukh ◽  
A. P. Lantukh
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Adequate Quality ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Strong Explosion ◽  
The Right

Annotation. The problem of suicide and euthanasia has been particularly updated with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a strong explosion of suicide, because medicine was not ready for it, and the man was too weak in front of its pressure. The article considers the issue of euthanasia and suicide based on philosophical messages from the position of a doctor, which today goes beyond medicine and medical ethics and becomes one of the important aspects of society. Medicine has achieved success in the continuation of human life, but it is unable to ensure the quality of life of those who are forced to continue it. In these circumstances, the admission of suicide or euthanasia pursues the refusal of the subject to achieve an adequate quality of life; an end to suffering for those who find their lives unacceptable. The reasoning that banned suicide: no one should harm or destroy the basic virtues of human nature; deliberate suicide is an attempt to harm a person or destroy human life; no one should kill himself. The criterion may be that suicide should not take place when it is committed at the request of the subject when he devalues his own life. According to supporters of euthanasia, in the conditions of the progress of modern science, many come to the erroneous opinion that medicine can have total control over human life and death. But people have the right to determine the end of their lives while using the achievements of medicine, as well as the right to demand an extension of life with the help of the same medicine. They believe that in the era of a civilized state, the right to die with medical help should be as natural as the right to receive medical care. At the same time, the patient cannot demand death as a solution to the problem, even if all means of relieving him from suffering have been exhausted. In defense of his claims, he turns to the principle of beneficence. The task of medicine is to alleviate the suffering of the patient. But if physician-assisted suicide and active euthanasia become part of health care, theoretical and practical medicine will be deprived of advances in palliative and supportive therapies. Lack of adequate palliative care is a medical, ethical, psychological, and social problem that needs to be addressed before resorting to such radical methods as legalizing euthanasia.

Writing the Rules of Death: State Regulation of Physician-Assisted Suicide

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-216
Author(s):  
Jack Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Lethal Dose ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Equal Protection ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Medical Treatments ◽  
Constitutional Review ◽  
Death State

If the Supreme Court affirms either Compassion in Dying v. State of Washington or Quill v. Vacco, state legislatures will be presented with a new and unwelcome task: regulating physician-assisted suicide (PAS). This article focuses on the states task of specific policy making in light of the due process reasoning in Compassion in Dying and the equal protection reasoning in Quill. Policy makers must try to predict whether a particular regulation would in practice achieve its intended objective. They must also try to predict whether the regulation would survive constitutional review if challenged. Finally, they must consider the extent to which they could, or should, maintain two different regulatory regimes: a more permissive one for decisions to forgo life-sustaining medical treatments, and a more restrictive one for decisions to obtain a prescription for a lethal dose of medication. This last issue will be especially challenging if the equal protection analysis in Quill prevails.

scholarly journals On Martyrdom, Suicide, and Christian Bioethics

2020 ◽  
pp. 002436392092731
Author(s):  
Ethan M. Schimmoeller
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
New Vision ◽  
The Individual

Christ has fashioned a remedy for the human condition out of mortality, making death the paradoxical means of salvation. Thus, the early Church saw martyrdom as the best kind of death, epitomized in the story of St. Ignatius of Antioch. He saw his death in Christ to be a birth into eternal life. Yet martyrdom and suicide can be conflated under crafty definitions and novel terminology, leading inevitably to calls to soften prohibitions against physician-assisted suicide. Whereas martyrdom locates death within the Christian lived experience of the Paschal mystery, suicide transfers the sovereignty of God over life and death to the individual, necessarily denying the goodness of creation in the process. I point to a liturgical foundation for bioethics as a better starting point for understanding martyrdom and suicide. Entering Christ’s sacrifice, Christians receive divine life and new vision to locate suffering, death, and health care within the Christian salvation narrative. Summary: Confusing martyrdom and suicide locates ethics outside the Church by bending language around the 5th commandment. St. Ignatius of Antioch's martyrdom clarifies the role of the Christian bioethicist to situate health care in the Church's life-giving liturgical experience.

Assisted suicide, recent judicial decisions, and implications for critical care nurses

1997 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 71-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
GS Wlody
Keyword(s):  
Critical Care ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Care Nurses ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Death With Dignity Act ◽  
The Individual

The passage of the Oregon Death With Dignity Act on November 8, 1994, heralded a wake-up call for healthcare professionals. Oregon, the first state to systematically "ration care" was thought to be a fertile ground for testing new and, some say, radical concepts in healthcare and government. Although the act was not implemented because it was tied up in legal action until February 1997, the fact that more than 50% of the voters in Oregon voted for it mandates that healthcare providers listen to their patients. Patients want more control of their pain, the way they die, and the resources spent on their care in the final days of their lives. Thoughts of future suffering engender great fear on the part of healthcare consumers. Concern exists that physician-assisted suicide in the ICU will affect not only physicians but also nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, and other clinicians as terminally ill patients make requests for assisted suicide while in the acute and critical care setting of the hospital. Critical care nurses must examine their value systems, review the Code for Nurses, and make their own decisions about participation in deliberately ending lives of patients. With the impending Supreme Court decision due in July 1997, the court may leave these issues to the individual states, opening the door for assisted suicide to occur throughout the United States. Therefore, the possibility will remain that critical care nurses may be put in positions in which physicians are providing assistance to patients who wish to commit suicide and are requesting nurses' assistance to do so.

The Beginning and Ending of Life

2019 ◽  
pp. 162-171
Author(s):  
John Keown
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Terminally Ill ◽  
Medical Law ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Life Sustaining Treatment ◽  
The Law

This chapter identifies several respects in which medical law in England and Wales suffers from a lack of ethical coherence in relation to its protection of human life. It argues that it is philosophically incoherent for the law to calibrate its protection of human life according to arbitrary stages of human development such as birth, viability, the fourteenth day after fertilization, and implantation. To the extent that the law permits life-sustaining treatment to be withheld or withdrawn from incompetent patients on the ground that their ‘quality of life’ is insufficient, and even with an intent to hasten death, it again displays ethical incoherence. If legislators or judges were to make it lawful for physicians to intentionally assist suicidal refusals of treatment, or to endorse a right to physician-assisted suicide for the ‘terminally ill’, the law's ethical incoherence would be seriously aggravated.

German Nurses, Euthanasia and Terminal Care: a Personal Perspective

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constanze Giese
Keyword(s):  
Terminal Care ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
Professional Associations ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Personal Perspective ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
End Of Life Decisions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Professional Care

The nursing profession in Germany is facing a public debate on legal and ethical questions concerning euthanasia on request and physician-assisted suicide. However, it seems questionable if the profession itself, individual nurses or the professional associations are prepared to be involved in such a public debate. To understand this hesitation, the present situation is considered in the light of the tradition and history of professional care in Germany. Obedience to medical as well as to religious authorities was long part of nurses' professional identity, but is no longer relevant. The lack of reflection and discussion on how to take a balanced view of ethical and political questions concerning nursing, and the role and responsibility of nurses in end-of-life decisions and situations of caring for dying people are discussed using the situation of nurses in the Netherlands as a comparison.

scholarly journals Grief After Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide

Crisis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 255-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Andriessen ◽  
Karolina Krysinska ◽  
Dolores Angela Castelli Dransart ◽  
Luc Dargis ◽  
Brian L. Mishara
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Study Quality ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Grief Process ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Self Reports

Abstract. Background: Several countries have regulated euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Research has looked at the experiences of patients, family, and professionals. However, little is known of the effects on bereaved individuals. Aims: We aimed to assess (a) what is known about the grief and mental health of people bereaved by euthanasia or PAS and (b) the quality of the research. Method: Systematic review according to PRISMA guidelines with searches in Cinahl, Embase, PsycINFO, Pubmed, and Scopus. Results: The searches identified 10 articles (eight studies), and the study quality was fair. People bereaved by euthanasia/PAS generally had similar or lower scores on measures of disordered grief, mental health, and posttraumatic stress compared with those who died naturally. Lack of social support and secrecy may compound their grief. Being involved in the decision-making process and having the feeling of honoring the deceased's will may facilitate their grief. Limitations: Studies used self-reports from non-random self-selected participants, were retrospective, and were conducted in only three countries. Conclusion: There is little evidence of increased risk of adverse grief or mental health outcomes in people bereaved by euthanasia/PAS. As more countries legalize assisted dying, high-quality studies of the factors that may hinder or facilitate the grief process are needed.

Physician-Assisted Suicide in Context: Constitutional, Regulatory, and Professional Challenges

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-182
Author(s):  
Bernard Lo ◽  
Karen H. Rothenberg ◽  
Michael Vasko
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Colon Cancer ◽  
Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Experimental Chemotherapy ◽  
Blood Samples ◽  
Intravascular Coagulation ◽  
Professional Challenges

Last month, a fifty-eight-year old man developed bleeding into his cheek and oozing from sites where previously he had had blood samples drawn. This bleeding was caused by disseminated intravascular coagulation, a complication of colon cancer that had spread to his liver and lungs. This complication occurred even though he was on chemotherapy for the cancer. In the hospital, he received transfusions and was administered medicine to stop the bleeding. However, his condition did not improve. He developed more bruises. When he tried to go to the bathroom without assistance, he fell, struck his head, requiring stitches, and developed a black, swollen eye. The patient, a successful businessman, had already overcome another type of cancer—lymphoma—through chemotherapy, twenty-five years ago. In a few days, this dynamic individual who expected to start experimental chemotherapy now saw his quality of life deteriorate steadily.We talked about more chemotherapy, about hospice, and about withholding attempts at resuscitation if his heart should stop.

Empirical research in the debate on physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 129-132
Author(s):  
Stephen W Smith
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Terminally Ill ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Voluntary Euthanasia ◽  
Assisted Dying ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
End Of Life Decisions ◽  
The Uk

This article explores the use of empirical data when considering whether to legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and voluntary euthanasia. In particular, it focuses on the evidence available to the Select Committee for the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill on whether or not covert euthanasia is taking place in the UK under the current prohibition of PAS and voluntary euthanasia. The article shows that there is an insufficient evidentiary basis to make any claims about the extent of covert euthanasia within the UK, although there is sufficient evidence to conclude that instances of covert euthanasia do happen. The article also calls for more research to be conducted in order to determine the rate of covert euthanasia in order to inform debate about the legalization of end-of-life decisions such as PAS and voluntary euthanasia.

How Health Care Institutions in the Netherlands Approach Physician Assisted Death

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 179-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman H. Van Der Kloot Meijburg
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Professional Expertise ◽  
Assisted Death ◽  
Health Care Institutions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Way

There is a need for reassessing the specific responsibilities of health care institutions in cases of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. For many patients health care institutions have become their end-of-life setting. With regard to patients' decisions toward the end of life, hospitals carry three responsibilities of their own: first, they must attend to the needs of the individual patient; second, they are responsible for offering professional expertise and their experience to the patient; and third, they must execute the responsibilities entrusted to them by society. In the way health care institutions cope with institutional decisions toward the end of life, they fulfill an exemplary function. In this contribution we will explore these institutional responsibilities by looking at the developments in The Netherlands.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document