euthanasia discussion questions

• Does the religious concept of the sanctity of life have any meaning in 21st century medical ethics?

  • medical science can help decide when sanctity of life is no longer a factor
  • keeping the body alive when they are gone is inhumane
  • SoL fails to accomadate new medical technologies
  • doctors find it hard to predict when death is
  • need social taboos to protect life
  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights - to affirm all lives not just the rich and powerful
• Should a person have complete autonomy over their own life and the decisions made about it?

  • Autonomy is an important idea to philosophers as it links to the idea of moral responsibility and the capability to make moral decisions
  • life ends beyond the individual - time to be born and a time to die - to try an hold autonomy over death flies in the face of reality that it most instances we do not have the option to die
  • how is it a free decision if we are presented with our own suffering -- often overwhelming people -- not helpful with autonomy
  • allows desperate people to make desperate decisions
  • what about the freedom of others - enable others to loose their life
  • freedom is an illusion that our choices make impact others
• Is there a moral difference between medical intervention to end a patients life and medical non-intervention to end a patients life?

  • face the possibility that if they are suffering they may be resuscitated
  • Emphysema - air becomes trapped in these spaces of damage lungs -- may wish to be resuscitated
  • this is different from introducing lethal injection
  • acting to take a life is different from taking the actions to kill someone
• natural law and situation ethics