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Results for “Euthanasia, Active, Voluntary”

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PubMed1989

The Appleton Consensus: suggested international guidelines for decisions to forego medical treatment.

Thirty-three physicians, bioethicists, and medical economists from ten different countries met at Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, to create The Appleton Consensus: International Guidelines for Decisions to Forego Medical Treatment. The guidelines deal with four specific decision-making circumstances: 1. Five guidelines were created for decisions involving competent patients or patients who have executed an advance directive before becoming incompetent, and those guidelines fell into three categories. 2. Thirteen guidelines were created for decisions involving patients who were once competent, but are not now competent, who have not executed an advance directive. 3. Seven guidelines were created for decisions involving patients who are not now and never have been competent, for whom 'no substituted judgement' can be rendered. 4. Eleven guidelines were created for decisions involving the scarcity of medical resources, which exists in all communities. Five concepts were identified as being critical in the establishment of priorities, given the reality of scarce health resources (1). The term 'physician' is used in the American sense, synonymous with 'medical practitioner'.

Beneficence↗
PubMed1994

Management of death, dying and euthanasia: attitudes and practices of medical practitioners in South Australia.

This article presents the first results of a study of the decisions made by health professionals in South Australia concerning the management of death, dying, and euthanasia, and focuses on the findings concerning the attitudes and practices of medical practitioners. Mail-back, self-administered questionnaires were posted in August 1991 to a ten per cent sample of 494 medical practitioners in South Australia randomly selected from the list published by the Medical Board of South Australia. A total response rate of 68 per cent was obtained, 60 per cent of which (298) were usable returns. It was found that forty-seven per cent had received requests from patients to hasten their deaths. Nineteen per cent had taken active steps which had brought about the death of a patient. Sixty-eight per cent thought that guidelines for withholding and withdrawal of treatment should be established. Forty-five per cent were in favour of legalisation of active euthanasia under certain circumstances.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Euthanasia in Holland: an ethical critique of the new law.

In the Netherlands the government's proposal for the legal regulation of euthanasia, assisted suicide and the termination of a patient's life without request has been approved by Parliament. The defence of this proposal is to a large extent based on a specific interpretation of data about the practice of euthanasia in that country, published in 1991 (the Remmelink Report). This paper discusses both the interpretation of the data and the new law. On the basis of that and other data, the author concludes that many cases of euthanasia, assisted suicide and termination of a patient's life without request remain unnotified and therefore unreviewed by the legal authorities. It is argued that the new law will not guarantee an improvement to this situation. In short, the new law will not protect effectively the lives of patients, and must, therefore, be open to ethical and legal objection.

Ethics, Medical↗
PubMed2006

Framing euthanasia.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed1997

Causing death or allowing to die? Developments in the law.

Several cases which have been considered by the courts in recent years have highlighted the legal dilemmas facing doctors whose decisions result in the ending of a patient's life. This paper considers the case of Dr Cox, who was convicted of attempting to murder one of his patients, and explores the roles of motive, diminished responsibility and consent in cases of "mercy killing". The Cox decision is compared to that of Tony Bland and Janet Johnstone, in which the patients were in a persistent vegetative state. In all three cases, the doctors believed that their patients' quality of life was so poor that their continued existence was of no benefit to them, and decided that their lives should not be unduly prolonged, yet the doctor who was prosecuted was the one whose dying patient had requested that her death be hastened. The paper examines the law's seemingly contradictory approaches to such cases.

Double Effect Principle↗
PubMed1993

Euthanasia policy in The Netherlands: the role of consultation-liaison psychiatrists.

The authors describe national guidelines introduced in the Netherlands in late 1990 for carrying out euthanasia requests by medically ill patients. In about 49,000 of the 130,000 annual deaths in that country, doctors make a decision that may influence the duration of life. In 2,300 cases doctors perform euthanasia. Thus euthanasia accounts for 1.8 percent of all deaths and 5 percent of the cases in which doctors' decisions play a role. The authors point out cultural differences between the U.S. and the Netherlands, such as in access to health care and in social tolerance and pragmatism, that should be considered by American policymakers who address the issue of euthanasia. The role of Dutch consultation-liaison psychiatrists in euthanasia was assessed by a survey of members of the Netherlands Consortium of Consultation/Liaison Psychiatry. Most felt that involvement of psychiatrists in such cases should not be mandatory and that their most important role was to assess patients' decision-making capacity. Half of the psychiatrists felt that their role was to support the decision-making process of the ward staff.

Aged↗
PubMed1998

The development of bioethics and the issue of euthanasia: regulating, de-regulating or re-regulating?

This paper relates the development of bioethics and the issue of euthanasia to social control. It suggests that, contrary to appearances, developments in these areas indicate increasing government control of health care practice. Specifically, it argues that, although the emergence of bioethics may appear to indicate health care professionals engaging in self-regulation, the reality is more a case of re-regulation or a shift of regulatory control from health care professionals to governments or agents of governments. By contrast, the issue of euthanasia appears to be proceeding in a different direction in that it seems to be a dispute over de-regulation of health care practice. In reality, though, it is similar to the development of bioethics. The issue of euthanasia, especially in recent years, rests on the same type of re-regulation of health care practice--a shift from medical control to increasing control by government.

Advisory Committees↗
PubMed1992

The legal consensus about foregoing life-sustaining treatment: its status and its prospects.

The legal consensus that has evolved through adjudication and legislation since the Karen Quinlan case in 1976 is founded on the premise that there is a bright line between passive euthanasia and active euthanasia. Indeed, the term passive euthanasia is often eschewed in favor of less emotionally-laden terminology such as "forgoing life-sustaining treatment" or "terminating life support" so as to further sever any possible connection with active euthanasia. Legal approval has been bestowed upon passive euthanasia under certain circumstances while active euthanasia is routinely condemned. This consensus was put to a test in 1990 when the United States Supreme Court ruled on the Cruzan case. However, the Court's narrow decision did not upset the consensus, and in the most significant appellate decisions handed down by state courts since Cruzan, there has been a reaffirmation--and possibly even an extension--of the consensus. Two other threats to the legal consensus about forgoing life-sustaining treatment have begun to manifest themselves: the increasing pressure for mercy killing and "futility" cases. Both of these challenge the fundamental premises on which the consensus is grounded.

Advance Directives↗