Rae, Moral Choices: Euthanasia1

Physician Assisted
Suicide and
Euthanasia

Rae, chapter 8

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Webster’s dictionary
deﬁnition for Euthanasia is
“Act or method of causing
death painlessly, so as to end
suﬀering: advocated by some
as a way to death with
victims of incurable diseases.”

A few case studies

http://www.rsrevision.com/Alevel/ethics/euthanasia/Euthanasia_Case_Studies.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/health/2001/euthanasia/default.stm
http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/Uploads/Documents/Euthanasia-Worksheet1.pdf


What questions might you ask?
Why did this person want to
die?
Were other alternatives
available?
How might their family and
friends feel?
What would you have done?

Jack Kevorkian earned the name
'Dr Death' by photographing the
eyes of dying patients. Later in his
career (starting in 1987) he began to
advertise his services as a physician
oﬀering 'death counselling'. When
terminally ill patients learned that
he was helping people to die, more
and more people came to him.
Despite several failed court cases,
Kevorkian helped over 130 people
to die.


Kevorkian believed that helping
people was not enough, and
actually killed Thomas Youk,
filmed himself doing so and
showed the film on 60 Minutes.
He left the studio in handcuffs,
and, defending himself
unsuccessfully in court, was
sentenced to 10-25 years in prison.
In 2006 Kevorkian became
terminally ill with Hepatitis C and
asked to be pardoned. He was
released in 2007.


Dax Cowart was very badly burnt after a gas
explosion engulfed his car. He said “I was burned so
severely and in so much pain that I did not want to live
even in the early moments following the explosion.”
Dax repeatedly asked his doctors, family and friends to
help him end his suﬀering, which lasted through 10
years of agonising treatment. Dax is blind and cannot
use his hands, but is otherwise healthy and currently
works as an attorney. He still believes it was wrong to
deny his request for euthanasia.


In 1992, it was decided by the UK High Court that
Doctors treating Hillsborough victim Tony Bland
could disconnect feeding tubes keeping him alive. The
president of the Family Division, Sir Stephen Brown,
said there was no "reasonable possibility" that after
three years Mr Bland would emerge from a coma
known as a "persistent vegetative state" or PVS. Mr
Bland's parents, Allan and Barbara, supported the
doctors' court action and said they were "relieved" at
the ruling. Tony Bland, 22, suﬀered severe brain
damage when he and hundreds of other football
supporters were crushed in an overcrowded stand at
Hillsborough stadium in April 1989.

Ninety-five fans died in the disaster. In the High Court
Mr Bland's doctors at Airedale General Hospital, near
Keighley in Yorkshire and other experts in the field
said he could survive for up to five years but he would
never recover.
If food were withdrawn he would die within days. Sir
Stephen ruled, for the first time in an English court,
that artificial feeding through a tube is medical
treatment and that to discontinue treatment would be
in accordance with good medical practice.
Tony died of dehydration 9 days after his feeding tube
was removed.


In 1992 Annie Lindsell (42) was diagnosed with
motor neurone disease and was worried her last days
would be racked by pain. Her greatest fear was the
prospect of suffocating or choking to death when
breathing and swallowing became difficult.
With only weeks to live, she asked the High Court to
rule that if this happened, her doctor could intervene
and administer diamorphine, without fear of
prosecution, even if it might shorten her life.
Note: motor neurone disease is a condition which destroys the
nerves that enable people to control their movements while
leaving their inte$ect and senses genera$y unaffected.


Annie Lindsell withdrew the case in October 1997
after she established that doctors could legally
administer life-shortening drugs for the relief of
mental as well as physical distress. She was assured
that her doctor would not allow her to suﬀer
unnecessarily and a treatment plan was agreed which
followed best medical practice.
Annie Lindsell died of motor neurone disease in
December 1997


Mrs Mary Ormerod had suﬀered a series of strokes,
and the only way she could be kept alive was to force
feed her through a syringe. Mary Ormerod's doctor
and daughters left her to starve to death in a nursing
home. They had taken a conscious decision to
withhold a nutritional supplement called Fresubin
from the 85-year-old after she ceased to communicate
with the outside world. She weighed less than four
stone when she died in August 1995


The GP who took the decision was suspended by the
General Medical Council, the regulatory body for
doctors, after nurses at the home complained about
his actions. They had opposed his decision to
withdraw treatment, and had secretly given food to
Mrs Ormerod.
Dr Ken Taylor, the GP involved was not suspended
directly because of his treatment of Mrs Ormerod, but
because he failed to listen to nurses and consult
colleagues. In fact, he had done nothing legally wrong
in starving Mrs Ormerod.
This is because artiﬁcial nutrition and hydration is
regarded as medical treatment.


Dianne Pretty suffered from motor
neurone disease that left her paralysed
from the neck down and facing a painful
death which she wanted to avoid. Mrs
Pretty was in need of 24-hour care and
faced an unpleasant death. Unable to
end her own life, she wanted her
husband to help her die without being
prosecuted. She said “I want to have a
quick death without suffering, at home Stephen
surrounded by my family.” She appealed Hawking suffers
unsuccessfully to the UK courts, and from motor
neurone disease
the European Court of Human Rights,
to allow her husband to help her to die.

Dianne Pretty’s court case to try to get permission for
her husband to help her die failed, and she died
without any assistance in May 2002.


Miss B was paralysed from the neck
down following a ruptured blood
vessel in her neck. Unable to breath
unaided Miss B was placed on a
ventilator. Miss B wanted the
ventilator to be switched oﬀ so she
could die. Doctors at the hospital
refused to turn the ventilator oﬀ.


Miss B was allowed to have her ventilator switched oﬀ
as it was considered to be medical treatment that she
was allowed to turn down because she was considered
to be of ‘sound mind’. Refusing to have treatment is
considered a diﬀerent issue to actively causing death.


Dignitas
Wikipedia says:
Dignitas is a Swiss assisted dying group that helps
those with terminal illness and severe physical and
mental illnesses to die assisted by qualiﬁed doctors and
nurses. Additionally, they provide assisted suicide for
people provided that they are of sound judgement and
submit to an in-depth medical report prepared by a
psychiatrist that establishes the patient's condition, as
required by Swiss courts.


A few months ago, cuddling up to her teenage children
on the sofa, Jenny Kamer told her family she was going
to get help from a Zurich based group called Dignitas
to commit suicide. She had just returned from a long
stay in hospital where doctors had had to put her into
an artiﬁcial coma for two weeks to keep her alive. "It's
very hard to tell your children you want to die," she
said. "But I have been dying slowly from an intestinal
disease for 10 years now and I can't do this anymore. I
want to die. Now I have to just choose a date."


When she told her family that the was going to get
help to die, her 16-year-old daughter couldn't wait to
leave the room. She has blocked out her mother's
decision and doesn't want to discuss it with her any
further. Her 18-year-old son Steve surprised her. He
said he would like to be there with her when she chose
to die to hold her hand. "It's not my body, it's her
body," he shrugged. "Of course when I lie in my bed at
night I get very sad thinking of her. But I want to let it
be her decision. She is the one who is in pain."


Jenny paid £10 to join Dignitas and since she has been
a member of the organisation, trained hospice staﬀ
from the group have paid her numerous visits to
prepare her and her family for the moment she'll
choose to die. Dignitas is run by a lawyer, Ludwig
Minelli, who says he set up the organisation because he
believes that if someone is terminally ill, it is their
human right to die when they choose.
"To live with dignity, to die with dignity. That is our
motto. What we are doing is a friendly act. The patient
always makes the last act - swallowing the drug or
opening a valve of a drip himself - so we have never
had a problem with police."

Once the decision has been made, the patient travels
to Zurich where he or she is taken to a Dignitas ﬂat to
administer the dose of barbiturates which will end his
or her life. "What we are doing is a friendly act... we
have never had a problem with police," said Mr
Minelli. "The patient always makes the last act -
swallowing the drug or opening a valve of a drip
himself." The drug is supposed to induce a deep sleep
within minutes of being taken, which will lead to a
peaceful and painless death, Dignitas says.


Nurse Erica Lully, who prepares the doses, told the
BBC News website how she deals with patients in the
last few minutes of their life. "I bring [the drink] to
the patient and once again ask, 'Is this your last day
because this will be your last drink. Afterwards it's
over, you will sleep two to ﬁve minutes and afterwards
you will die'."


Although there is nothing concrete in the Swiss penal
code which says that assisted suicide is legal in
Switzerland, the practice of helping a terminally ill
patient to end his or her life is widely recognised as a
humane act. Unless the person helping is proven to be
acting out of self seeking motives, prosecution is
extremely unlikely. Dignitas has made sure that, at
each of the 109 deaths it has assisted at over the past
few years, there were two witnesses and the local
authorities are always informed. It has never fallen foul
of the law.


Rae, Moral Choices: Euthanasia1

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