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Results for “Euthanasia, Active, Voluntary”

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PubMed1995

Velcro on the slippery slope: the role of psychiatry in active voluntary euthanasia.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the paper is to determine the role that psychiatrists should play in legislation that establishes a right to active voluntary euthanasia (AVE). METHOD: One version of the "slippery slope" argument, usually invoked against the legalisation of AVE, is recast as an argument for the introduction of strong safeguards in any future AVE legislation. The literature surrounding the prevalence of psychiatric illnesses in the terminally ill, physicians' ability to identify such illnesses and the aetiology of suicide in the terminally ill is examined. RESULTS: The strength of the slippery slope argument, combined with the poor ability of general physicians to diagnose psychiatric illness in the terminally ill, demands that any legislation allowing AVE should require a mandatory psychiatric review of the patient requesting euthanasia. CONCLUSIONS: Any legislation adopted that establishes a right to active voluntary euthanasia should include a mandatory psychiatric review of the person requesting euthanasia and a cooling off period before the request is acceded to. In addition, the discovery of a serious mental illness ought to disqualify the affected person from the right to AVE until that illness resolves.

Australia↗
PubMedDate not supplied

U.K. physicians' attitudes toward active voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

A comparison of the views of geriatric medicine physicians and intensive care physicians in the United Kingdom on the topics of active voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide revealed rather different attitudes. Eighty percent of geriatricians, but only 52% of intensive care physicians, considered active voluntary euthanasia as never justified ethically. Gender and age did not play a major part in attitudinal differences of the respondents. If the variability of attitudes of these two medical specialties are anywhere near illustrative of other physicians in the United Kingdom, it would be difficult to formulate and implement laws and policies concerning euthanasia and assisted suicide. In addition, ample safeguards would be required to receive support from physicians regarding legalization.

Attitude↗
PubMed2000

A comparison of resident and faculty attitudes toward physician-assisted suicide and active voluntary euthanasia.

PURPOSE: Assisted death practices such as physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and active voluntary euthanasia (AVE) are becoming more acceptable to the public and the medical profession. This study compared the attitudes and practices of resident house staff physicians with the medical staff physicians responsible for teaching them regarding PAS and AVE. METHODS: A convenience sample of 372 medical staff and 105 resident house staff from a multi-residency community teaching hospital were anonymously surveyed. The overall response rate was 47%. The questionnaire consisted of 10 questions that examined the subjects' professional and legal values, willingness to participate in assisted death practices, and personal preferences for assisted death practices. RESULTS: The resident house staff differed significantly from the medical staff in attitudes toward assisted death practices. The resident house staff was less likely to support the traditional prohibitions against PAS and AVE. The resident house staff was also more likely to offer assisted death practices if they were legal. There was no significant difference, however, in the participation of assisted death practices between the groups respectively for PAS and AVE. The residents were more likely to request PAS or AVE for themselves or family members. CONCLUSIONS: There are significant differences in attitudes and practices between resident physicians and medical staff physicians concerning PAS and AVE. These differences could lead to professional conflicts when setting clinical goals for end-of-life care and could compromise patient care.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1998

Nurse characteristics and attitudes to active voluntary euthanasia: a survey in the Australian Capital Territory.

While surveys of Australian nurses' attitudes to active voluntary euthanasia (AVE) have found that the majority are in favour, there may be important differences between subgroups of nurses. This paper investigates the role of the following nurse characteristics on nurses' attitudes to AVE: age, gender, religion, amount of contact with terminally ill patients, area of specialty, and degree of interest taken in the issue of AVE. A postal survey on AVE was carried out in late 1996 of 2000 randomly selected registered nurses from the Australian Capital Territory. Responses were received from 1218 nurses (61%). The survey included a question asking whether the law should be changed to allow doctors to take active steps to bring about a patient's death under some circumstances. Overall, 69% of respondents agreed that the law should be changed. Those nurses who were more likely to agree were under the age of 40 years, agnostic, atheist or of the Anglican religion, to have less contact with terminally ill patients, to work in the area of critical care or mental health, and to take less interest in the issue of AVE. Palliative care nurses were the only subgroup without a majority in favour (33%). There is other evidence in the euthanasia literature, that nurses and doctors are less in favour of AVE than the general public. Taken together with the present findings, it can be concluded that attitudes towards AVE are more favourable in people who have less contact with the terminally ill.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A concept analysis of voluntary active euthanasia.

TOPIC: Euthanasia has a wide range of classifications. Confusion exists in the application of specific concepts to various studies. PURPOSE: To analyze the concept of voluntary active euthanasia using Walker and Avant's concept analysis method. SOURCES OF INFORMATION: A comprehensive literature review from various published literature and bibliographies. CONCLUSIONS: Clinical, ethical, and policy differences and similarities of euthanasia need to be debated openly, both within the medical profession and publicly. Awareness of the classifications about euthanasia may help nurses dealing with "end of life issues" properly.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed2004

Moving from voluntary euthanasia to non-voluntary euthanasia: equality and compassion.

The recent Dutch law legalising active voluntary euthanasia will reignite the euthanasia debate. An illuminating method for evaluating the moral status of a practice is to follow the implications of the practice to its logical conclusion. The argument for compassion is one of the central arguments in favour of voluntary active euthanasia. This argument applies perhaps even more forcefully in relation to incompetent patients. If active voluntary euthanasia is legalised, arguments based on compassion and equality will be directed towards legalising active non-voluntary euthanasia in order to make accelerated termination of death available also to the incompetent. The removal of discrimination against the incompetent has the potential to become as potent a catch-cry as the right to die. However, the legalisation of non-voluntary euthanasia is undesirable. A review of the relevant authorities reveals that there is no coherent and workable "best interests" test which can be invoked to decide whether an incompetent patient is better off dead. This provides a strong reason for not stepping onto the slippery path of permitting active voluntary euthanasia.

Civil Rights↗
PubMed2006

A case for justified non-voluntary active euthanasia: exploring the ethics of the Groningen Protocol.

One of the most recent controversies to arise in the field of bioethics concerns the ethics for the Groningen Protocol: the guidelines proposed by the Groningen Academic Hospital in The Netherlands, which would permit doctors to actively euthanise terminally ill infants who are suffering. The Groningen Protocol has been met with an intense amount of criticism, some even calling it a relapse into a Hitleresque style of eugenics, where people with disabilities are killed solely because of their handicaps. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, the paper will attempt to disabuse readers of this erroneous understanding of the Groningen Protocol by showing how such a policy does not aim at making quality-of-life judgements, given that it restricts euthanasia to suffering and terminally ill infants. Second, the paper illustrates that what the Groningen Protocol proposes to do is both ethical and also the most humane alternative for these suffering and dying infants. Lastly, responses are given to some of the worries expressed by ethicists on the practice of any type of non-voluntary active euthanasia.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1991

[Attitude towards active voluntary euthanasia].

1,208 adult Norwegians constituting a representative sample of the population (above 20 years of age), were interviewed about doctors' right to practice euthanasia upon request for a dying and suffering patient. 56% were in favour (with varying degrees of agreement), 19% against, and 25% undecided. With regard to a non-terminal suffering patient, 31% were in favour (with varying degrees of agreement), 36% against, and 33% undecided. A sample of 541 graduate students proved to be more restrictive. The attitude towards voluntary euthanasia, towards suicide, and towards abortion proved to be positively intercorrelated, and at the same time negatively correlated to religious faith. A positive attitude to euthanasia was more strongly related to concern for the patient than for the relatives, while concern for health personnel seemed almost irrelevant.

Adult↗