I feel like I didn't say this right today. So a quick re-do.
I haven't committed to the idea that all euthanasia is wrong. I just suspect that a lot of decisions to remove or refuse treatment are not _really_ attempts to end life, even if life will end as a result.
(We'll see some exceptions in upcoming readings.)
Now, rehearsing a point that I need to accept, given my view: A foreseen effect isn't necessarily the same as a planned and intended effect.
Yeah. But that might be a sketchy move. At least: if you know for sure that the "side-effect" will follow, the burden ought to be on you to explain what you mean when you say that you don't intend it.
"I didn't plan to total your car, I only meant to see how many of its airbags would inflate if I hit a tree at high speed."
At some point, the intended effect and the side effect are so closely related that it is hard to explain how you can be intending one but not the other.
So what about: "I didn't plan to end his life, I only meant to administer the maximum dosage of pain medication, knowing that that's fatal, in order to get him out of pain."
It's just a question I'm pondering.
I think that toeing the line of intended side effect and actual side effect is really sketchy. It is wholly dependent on someone's inner thoughts, feelings, and intentions, and a person may lie to themselves about what they really think, even if they don't mean to.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I think it is possible, medically speaking, to administer pain medication for a patient's benefit even if it may end their life. Because patients now have a large say in what kind of treatment they want, if they want any at all, it is entirely possible for a doctor to not favor euthanasia but a patient (or someone with the power of attorney over them) to favor a euthanasia-like treatment.
I think your worry is well placed. When someone refuses treatment, as they are allowed to do, they may, for all we know, aim at death, rather than merely ending suffering. And of course, in many cases, these amount to the same thing, so the intentions are not easy to distinguish. What I object to is a standard way of framing the issue: "why are some people allowed to die and some people not--it seems unfair." The medical establishment has come to give this answer: we're not allowed to kill you, but what you yourself do is up to you. There was a time, as we've seen, when they did NOT allow patients to refuse treatment. But as a culture we've come to see that as an inappropriate paternalism. From "no one can choose death" we're moving to "death is a choice doctors should enable" is a path we're on now. Is that for the best? That's part of what we're all trying to figure out.
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