Word: euthanasia
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...also criticized medical technology which merely prolongs lives of AIDS victims into the painful stages of mental illness and raises medical costs. He warned that the pain may cause even higher suicide rates among AIDS victims, and that the high costs will increase pressure to legalize euthanasia. He said he favors home-based or hospice care as a more human alternative to institutionalized care...
...unknown resident's actions points to the serious moral and ethical questions of euthanasia. What has upset many doctors is the resident's decision to kill Debbie without attempting to allieviate her pain or without consulting her doctor or family. The American Medical Association's official guidelines say that physicians may withhold life-sustaining treatment under certain circumstances, but should never cause death intentionally. But as Debbie's case shows us, the line between the two has become fuzzy...
Across the country, physicians upset by the story criticized the unnamed resident's action. "Euthanasia is practiced," says Washington Internist Jon Wiseman. "But usually it's done in a more passive kind of way, by withholding treatment -- not by putting someone to sleep like a dog." Do doctors commonly make that kind of decision alone? "No one talks about that kind of stuff," he says. Manhattan Internist Eric Cassell, who prefers not to pass moral judgment on mercy killing, believes that if it does occur, it should be only because the "circumstances are impossible to change or bear -- not merely...
Lundberg's own position reflects the A.M.A.'s posture on euthanasia: physicians may withhold life-sustaining treatment under certain circumstances, but should never intentionally cause death. Most physicians concur, though some acknowledge that the line is often hard to draw. Perhaps the harshest indictment of Debbie's treatment comes from doctors who maintain that morphine, used properly, could have kept her comfortable. Her regular physicians, not the hapless resident, believes Minneapolis Neurologist Ronald Cranford, are the "real criminals" for having failed to prescribe adequate medication for her pain. But if the dose required to bring relief also happened to hasten...
...author firmly opposes euthanasia, however, which involves active steps toward direct killing. And he would have doctors provide the elderly with greater relief of their suffering and more home care and support. He would also increase medical resources devoted to defective newborns, the now hopeless victims of AIDS or any nonaged patient with slim chances of recovery. "A 35-year-old has not had a chance to live out a full life-span," he says. "Some research may come along in time to save them -- we don't know that they are all going to die." Callahan carefully avoids setting...