Essay on "Voluntary or Assisted Euthanasia"

Essay 3 pages (1084 words) Sources: 3

[EXCERPT] . . . .

The impact to the social values, morals, norms and nursing practice are obvious. What technically happened to Terri is that she was starved to death. It is not as if she was on a respirator or other device that forced her breathing or heartbeat. She died primarily because food was withheld from her. There is a big difference between doing that and taking someone off of more conventional life support. Even so, Terri had lived (if that is what one would call it) for fifteen years in a much degenerated state and there was a litany of very competent doctors that said her chance of recovery was zero. As such, while it was a very hard decision to make and while some people would call it murder, it was the right choice (VOA, 2009).

It there are ethical theories or ideas that could or should be advanced when it comes to the Schiavo situation, there should be two. First of all, all adults should have advanced directives and/or living wills that make it abundantly clear what they do want done, what they do not want done and so forth. If/when the need to honor those directives should come to pass, they should be honored without question. The second lesson is that those fifteen years that Terri went through had to be a private hell in her own mind. Perhaps she was somewhat lucid in her mind but the likelihood is almost zero. Making her life her natural life in that state would be torture and the removal of the feeding tube just finished the job that the cardiac arrest started. Many people say that the removal of a feeding tube is murder. It often would be but it is not a black and white issue and the Schiavo was certainly in the "gray" area (Baylis, 2005).

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