Word: euthanasias
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...surprising that physicians are on the front lines of the euthanasia debate, since they are the only participants for whom life-and- death decisions are as common as they are complex. They are most acutely conscious of the allocation of scarce resources -- time, money and their own energy -- among patients who might be cured and those who can only be sustained. And it is they who must offer explanations to the anxious families of patients whose lives are lost but not yet gone...
While such articles challenge doctors to rethink their professional roles, there is no agreement among them on this issue. Some physicians and ethicists warn that active euthanasia, if commonly practiced, could undermine the whole ethos of healing and the doctors' role as care givers. "A patient could never be totally confident that the doctor was coming to help him and not kill him," argues George Annas, director of the Law, Medicine & Ethics Program at Boston University's Schools of Medicine and Public Health...
Even hospice workers, who are more concerned with controlling pain than delaying death, are firmly opposed to the idea of loading a syringe with an overdose of morphine and handing it over. And doctors who spend all their time treating the incurably ill may still stop short of sanctioning euthanasia. "I don't want that word and my name in the same sentence," says Jeffrey Buckner, medical director for the Jacob Perlow Hospice of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. "If you are a physician and that charge is made against you, it sticks...
...water, even through a tube, represents the necessities of life and constitutes basic care. Some experts also debate whether there is a clear or a blurred line between withholding nourishment and the next step, injecting death-inducing drugs. Many worry about a slippery slope that could lead to legalized euthanasia and suicide, and a general devaluation of life, particularly of those who are incompetent or elderly...
Although he said he personally would have tried to save Baby Doe, Koop said he adopted a middle-of-the-road position on the general question of euthanasia, saying decisions should be made on a case by case basis...