Both Brittany Maynard and Craig Ewert ultimately did not want to die, but they were aware they were dying. They both suffered from a terminal illness that would eventually take their life. Their worst fear was to spend their last days, in a state of stress and pain. At the same time, they would inflict suffering on their loved ones as their family witnessed their painful death. Brittany and Craig believed in the notion of dying with dignity. The states where they both resided did not allow “active voluntary euthanasia or mercy killing at the patient’s request” (Vaughn 269). As a result, they both had to leave their homes to a place that allowed them to get aid in dying. Brittany and Craig were able to die with dignity and peace. Both avoiding …show more content…
Utilitarianism argues that, we need to consider how much overall happiness of the action could bring, considering everyone involved. For example, how will Brittany’s choice for euthanasia affect her husband, friend, and parents? In Craig’s case, how will his choice for euthanasia affect his wife, son, and daughter? In both of their cases, that devastation that they will die is already difficult for them, and their families. Craig’ wife and his two children were sad that he was making the decision to die before his illness consumed him. Her daughter speaks on how hard it was for her, and in a sense relieved, she was not present when her father took his own life. Brittany was a newlywed, it was extremely sad for her husband and brother in law to know she was taking her life beforehand. To make a choice an act-utilitarian would need to balance out the overall happiness compared to the suffering. Both Brittany and Craig will eventually die. If they both let their terminal illness progress they would inflict extreme suffering on themselves and their family as they witnessed their pain. In Craig’s case, his illness will get worst it will cause paralysis. His major concern was on how would he be able to let …show more content…
Brittany and Craig would benefit from a utilitarian point of view. The theory asks to act upon a calculation of which action would produce more happiness. First calculation would entail Brittany to lose her human dignity, suffer great pain, causing her family suffering as they see her in agony. For Craig it would entail him losing his human dignity, probably suffer great pain and not being able to express his pain due to immobility, and cause his family suffering and struggle to care for him. The second calculation can be calculated by considering that either way, they will both die. They can choose to die peacefully conserving their human dignity, avoiding their family witness their pain. As a result, they would both die relieved that they did not suffer a tragic and painful death and inflicted suffering on their families. Being able to make their own choice on how they wanted to die was extremely important for
Diane: A Case of Physician Assisted Suicide. Diane was a patient of Dr. Timothy Quill, who was diagnosed with acute myelomonocytic leukemia. Diane overcame alcoholism and had vaginal cancer in her youth. She had been under his care for a period of 8 years, during which an intimate doctor-patient bond had been established.
Brittany Maynard was a twenty nine year old woman who married her husband just a year before she passed away. Before she passed, she was diagnosed with a terminal disease, brain cancer. Her doctors gave her six months to live and using treatment might shorten her already short amount of time that she had left to live. Maynard and her family uprooted from their home in San Francisco, California and moved to Portland, Oregon. In Oregon, she planned to get new physicians and after attending appointments, she could be prescribed a lethal pill that would end her life. She wanted to live her last six months happily, and she didn’t want to suffer and have her family watch her suffer. (Death) She wanted to be able to end her life on her own terms, and not when the cancer says that she had to. She received a lot of unkind criticism for her choice. Death with Dignity Act, or the use of assisted suicide is morally justifiable, especially in Brittany Maynard’s
Brittany Maynard was a 29 year old woman, she was thriving and loving life then, she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Brittany did a lot of research about her cancer and she finally realized that there wouldn’t be any good outcome. After fighting the cancer for months, she had the option of living in her home with hospice coming in and caring for her. Brittany made the decision to move to Oregon with her family to be protected by the Death with Dignity law. She wanted to be able to die when it felt ‘right’. She wanted to say when enough was enough and she said all her goodbyes. Brittany also didn’t want to have hospice take care of her, because she would just be suffering and in pain for who knows how long, wondering when the time will be that she dies. Her family would have to sit there and watch that day by day. How could a family do that? Brittany chose not to go through radiation and lived her life to the fullest with her family happy and smiling, until that time felt ‘right’ and she couldn’t go on any longer. She actually had the medication for a long time, before she took it, because she didn’t want to die, but dying was going to happen anyway. She wanted to die on her terms. When my suffering becomes too great, I can say to all those I love, "I love you; come be by my side,
Several of the main reasons provided are, the state has the commitment to protect life, the medical profession, and vulnerable groups (Washington et al. v. Glucksberg et al., 1997). However, in 2008 the Supreme Courts reversed their previous decision and passed the Death with Dignity Act legalizing PAS for Washington State. This declares that terminally ill individuals in the states of Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Vermont now have the liberty to choose how they will end their lives with either hospice care, palliative care, comfort measures, or PAS. The question remains: will the rest of the United States follow their lead?
In many interviews she explained how she was not suicidal, but wanted to end her life on her own terms. She stated: “I would not tell anyone else that he or she should choose death with dignity. My question is: Who has the right to tell me that I don’t deserve this choice?” (CNN, 2014). She felt that she didn’t want to put her family through physical and emotional pain and that she thought it was her right to make that choice for herself. She said once she had the prescription in her hands that she had felt a tremendous sense of relief (CNN, 2014). She stated that she felt in control and that she could move forward in her remaining days and enjoy her family knowing that she had a safety net (CNN, 2014). Brittany Maynard ended her life on November 1, 2014 by taking the prescribed medication for assisted
Utilitarianism cares more about the whole of society than the individuals that make it. This theory breeds the idea that death can be helpful to the whole. It could be in the form of execution, murder, suicide, assisted suicide, etc. Peter Singer quotes in his article “Decisions about Death” John Stuart Mill’s bridge example: if you see someone crossing an unsafe bridge, you may stop them and warn them. If they continue anyway, you must step aside and let them cross.”
Imagine, if you will, that you have just found out you have a terminal medical condition. Doesn’t matter which one, it’s terminal. Over the 6 months you have to live you experience unmeasurable amounts of pain, and when your free of your pain the medication you’re under renders you in an impaired sense of consciousness. Towards the 4th month, you begin to believe all this suffering is pointless, you are to die anyways, why not with a little dignity. You begin to consider Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS). In this essay I will explain the ethical decisions and dilemmas one may face when deciding to accept the idea of Physician-Assisted Suicide. I will also provide factual information pertaining to the subject of PAS and testimony from some that advocate for legalization of PAS. PAS is not to be taken lightly. It is the decision to end one’s life with the aid of a medical physician. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary states that PAS is “Suicide by a patient facilitated by means (as a drug prescription) or by information (as an indication of a lethal dosage) provided by a physician aware of the patient’s intent.” PAS is considered, by our textbook – Doing Ethics by Lewis Vaughn, an active voluntary form of euthanasia. There are other forms of euthanasia such as non-voluntary, involuntary, and passive. This essay is focusing on PAS, an active voluntary form of euthanasia. PAS is commonly known as “Dying/Death with Dignity.” The most recent publicized case of PAS is the case of Brittany Maynard. She was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in California, where she lived. At the time California didn’t have Legislative right to allow Brittany the right to commit PAS so she was transported to Oregon where PAS is legal....
Giving a patient this option not only allows him or her to abstain from unnecessary pain, but it also allows the patient to die a dignified death. Colleges of the Boston College Law School Faculty Papers explain their views on assisted suicided to readers expressing, “We believe that it is reasonable to provide relief from suffering for patients who are dying or whose suffering is so severe that it is beyond their capacity to bear…The most basic values that support and guide all health care decision-making, including decisions about life-sustaining treatment, are the same values that provide the fundamental basis for physician-assisted suicide: promoting patients’ well-being and respecting their self-determination or autonomy”. The contributing authors make an excellent point stating the same values that are used in prolonging an individual 's life are the same used in assisted dying. Nonetheless, the majority of the United States remains opposed to assisted dying ignoring the individual’s mental, physical, and emotional pain he or she has undergone.With that in mind, this law also ignores the trauma close family members endure witnessing his or her loved ones face such an undesirable
Human life is intrinsically good, and ending life goes against what is good about the human life. The human life has a natural life expectancy and natural disasters like AIDS or Ebola. In accordance to the natural law, dying from AIDS or natural causes is morally permissible. Depending on the severity of the causes, they can either die a peaceful or a slow and painful death. But, most of the time death or an illness is uncertain. So, this issue makes people think about whether they want to partake in assisted suicide. The major obstacle is that there are people who believe in the natural law and are willing to endure the suffering for a long period. However, there are people who do not want to suffer a painful death. Assisted suicide may be the best option to end suffering. Assisted suicide would be the best option for Norma because it minimizes the suffering and maximizes the overall good. Because the utilitarian principle favors assisted suicide for those with natural illness like cancer, it is therefore morally justified.
As patients come closer to the end of their lives, certain organs stop performing as well as they use to. People are unable to do simple tasks like putting on clothes, going to the restroom without assistance, eat on our own, and sometimes even breathe without the help of a machine. Needing to depend on someone for everything suddenly brings feelings of helplessness much like an infant feels. It is easy to see why some patients with terminal illnesses would seek any type of relief from this hardship, even if that relief is suicide. Euthanasia or assisted suicide is where a physician would give a patient an aid in dying. “Assisted suicide is a controversial medical and ethical issue based on the question of whether, in certain situations, Medical practioners should be allowed to help patients actively determine the time and circumstances of their death” (Lee). “Arguments for and against assisted suicide (sometimes called the “right to die” debate) are complicated by the fact that they come from very many different points of view: medical issues, ethical issues, legal issues, religious issues, and social issues all play a part in shaping people’s opinions on the subject” (Lee). Euthanasia should not be legalized because it is considered murder, it goes against physicians’ Hippocratic Oath, violates the Controlled
Utilitarianism is an example of Consequentialist Ethics, where the morality of an action is determined by its accomplishing its desired results. In both scenarios the desired result was to save the lives of thousands of people in the community. Therefore, a Utilitarian would say that the actions taken in both of the scenarios are moral. Since an (Act) Utilitarian believes that actions should be judged according to the results it achieves. Happiness should not be simply one's own, but that of the greatest number. In both scenarios, the end result saved the lives of 5,000 members of the community. The end result is the only concern and to what extreme is taken to reach this result is of no matter. In these instances the things that are lost are an Inmates religious beliefs or a mothers fetus, on the other hand Thousands of citizens were saved from dying from this disease.
Most people who desire to end their lives early due to terminal illness have some kind of cancer. Late stage cancer often robs people of their ability to go about daily needs without the need for assistance such as feeding oneself and going to the bathroom on their own. Three years ago, Brittany Maynard’s story was televised across the county, “...plans to end her life...before her aggressive brain cancer can rob her of her cognitive function and impose a painful, seizure-ridden death” (LA Times Article 16). Maynard was only 29 when she died, but she made her decision because her illness would have ruined her youthful life. Letting the cancer take her would’ve been a horrifying process for both herself and all those who cared for her.
The ethical debate regarding euthanasia dates back to ancient Greece and Rome. It was the Hippocratic School (c. 400B.C.) that eliminated the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide from medical practice. Euthanasia in itself raises many ethical dilemmas – such as, is it ethical for a doctor to assist a terminally ill patient in ending his life? Under what circumstances, if any, is euthanasia considered ethically appropriate for a doctor? More so, euthanasia raises the argument of the different ideas that people have about the value of the human experience.
In addition, the death with dignity act is performed through euthanasia which is the practice of intentionally ending a life to relieve pain and suffering. Since the death with dignity act isn't legalized all within america, it is a struggle among patients who rely on it. For instance, 3 years ago, 29 year old Brittany Maynard diagnosed with terminal brain cancer decided to move from her hometown California to Oregon, to take advantage of Oregon's death with dignity law. In other words, it allowed terminally ill patients, such as Brittany to choose where and when they want to die. After specialists told Brittany that she had 6 months to live, she was in a predicament to either follow a treatment plan which might ease her pain, but seriously diminish the quality of her remaining life, or reject the treatment and enable her family to watch her slowly suffer and die. however, Brittany looked for a third alternative and states that, “I did not want this nightmare scenario for my family,”(www.) On November 1st, Brittany planned to choose to end her miserable life in Oregon around her friends and family which Britanny called the ring of love. Without death with dignity, life can in fact, turn out to be hopeless since the terminally ill patient
My opponents and their followers “see it as a term of murder, killing those who are sick, infirm, or disabled, young and old alike, with or without their permission.” (Urofsky 22). They could even say that by allowing euthanasia, we could possibly be encouraging people that it is ok to end your own life when you see fit; inadvertently telling people it is okay to commit suicide. My opponent also believes that euthanasia should not be allowed, as it allows doctors to play God with the lives of people who are ill. In presenting a utilitarian argument for euthanasia, we first have to understand what utilitarianism is.... ...