Legalize Euthanasia Debate
Much of the reasoning in the reports can be summarized in this excerpt from the New York State Task Force report: “For the purposes of public debate, cases can be described where all recommended safeguards would be met. But postulating an “ideal” or “good” case is not enough for public policy if it has little to do with mainstream social and medical practices. No matter how carefully policies are formulated, (assisted suicide and) euthanasia is practiced through the lens of social inequality and prejudice that characterizes services in all segments of our society, including health care. These practices will pose the greatest threat to the poor, elderly, minority or lacking access to good medical care. French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday announced a national debate aimed at expanding end-of-life options, including exploring the possibility of legalizing assisted suicide, with a view to implementing changes next year. Euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, also known as mercy killing, is becoming an important public debate. The implications of legalizing assisted suicide are manifold from a medical, legal, political and ethical point of view. The usefulness of a single palliative care has been questioned – even if it is mandatory, as is the case at the University Hospitals of the Canton of Vaud in Lausanne, Switzerland (the first hospital to allow assisted suicide in Switzerland in 2005 40) 41. Among palliative care professionals in the UK, 63% believe that a single assessment is not sufficient to fully assess and meet the needs of a person requesting euthanasia or not 42. A similar number of British psychiatrists have expressed similar concerns 43,44, and only 6% of Oregon psychiatrists feel comfortable providing consultations to patients requesting a 45 SBP.
At a time of national debate over health care and insurance costs, a Pew Research Center survey on end-of-life decisions found that most Americans say there are circumstances in which doctors and nurses should let a patient die. At the same time, however, a growing minority say that medical professionals should do everything in their power to save a patient`s life in all circumstances. Presenting euthanasia only as a private matter is dangerously naïve and ignores the fact that the euthanasia law would set new and less stringent standards of respect for human life, because in the eyes of many, legalizing a case means that it has the approval of authority. VE would then become one of the options that could be made available to all vulnerable sick patients and should be promoted and encouraged. Given the glaring imbalance of power between physicians and their patients, some patients would then be influenced powerfully and unfairly. This would place an unnecessary burden on dying patients when they may already be seriously burdened and confused by so many aspects of their illness. The New York State Task Force committee had 25 members, some of whom believed that euthanasia and assisted suicide were sometimes ethical and consistent with good medical practice. This committee presented a unanimous report rejecting legalization, an extremely valuable collection of important information. In early 1997, the Parliament of Tasmania established a committee to examine the need for voluntary euthanasia legislation in Tasmania. When she released the committee`s final report in 1998, the Speaker revealed that of the five MPs, four, including herself, had initially been in favour of euthanasia. That committee unanimously concluded that `it would be impossible to formulate a law containing all the necessary safeguards to protect vulnerable, vulnerable and disabled persons` (6).
In the Netherlands (euthanasia support and advice in the Netherlands) and Belgium (Life End Information Forum (leif)), networks of doctors trained to assume the advisory role in the search for euthanasia have been set up. Their duties include ensuring that the person is informed of all options, including palliative care. However, most Leif physicians have simply taken a 24-hour theoretical course, of which only 3 hours are related to palliative care, which is barely enough to allow an LEIF member to provide adequate guidance on complex palliative care needs.19 Developing expertise in palliative care, as in any other field, takes a lot of time. In the UK, it includes a 4-year residency program and in Australia and the US 3 years. Given the legal sanction, euthanasia, which was originally intended for exceptional cases, has become an accepted method in the Netherlands to treat serious or incurable diseases. Palliative care has become one of the victims, while palliative care has lagged behind other countries. Macron said in a written statement that a citizens` panel will work on the issue in the coming months in coordination with health workers, while local debates will be held in French regions. In parallel, the government will hold talks with legislators from all political parties to find the broadest possible consensus. VE is sometimes considered permissible as an expression of a claim to privacy, as if it were simply an important matter between the patient and the physician.
If a doctor accepted euthanasia, it could only happen because he had concluded that this life had lost enough value – no one would destroy a life he cherished. But if a doctor felt comfortable with the idea that it was acceptable for him to attach little value to the lives of some patients, it could be fateful for other of his patients who were in a similar condition but had not asked for death. He would have the right to interpret positively any discussion of euthanasia and ignore the evidence that many of these discussions are initiated by patients in desperate need to have their lives confirmed and not rejected. It is well known that today`s medical systems are increasingly depersonalizing patients. It is now evident that such a neutral pathway has been discovered, although perhaps by chance it has already been used several times and the results of this use have been published. I am referring to the reports of the major commissions of inquiry supported by the government, which have been held over the past few years on four different continents and which have dealt with the consequences of the legalization of euthanasia. Some proponents of euthanasia claim that the above figures are incorrectly representative because many people have expressed their desire or support for euthanasia at some point in their lives, albeit not formally. The counter-argument is that the legal requirement of explicit written consent is important to prevent abuse and abuse. Finally, written consent has become essential in medical research if participants are to undergo surgery, many of whom have a much lower risk of mortality. Recent history is replete with examples of misuse of medical research without explicit consent. A patient who requested euthanasia would have concluded that his life was no longer worth living, and a physician who accepted the request would have reached the same conclusion by an independent but arbitrary judgment.
In the same circumstances, different patients and doctors would have come to different conclusions, based on their personal values. Under a euthanasia law that simply accepts these personal choices as grounds for lawful murder, the result would be a kind of lottery of life, where a subjective request would be answered with a subjective response and would be neither objectively validated nor objectively validated. The idea that lawful enforcement may depend on the unverifiable choice or opinion of individuals is at odds with any mature notion of justice. In the preamble to its 1987 euthanasia guidelines, the Royal Netherlands Medical Association wrote: “If there is no request from the patient, then the end of his life is [legally] a matter of murder or homicide and not euthanasia.” Until 2001, the association supported the new law, in which a written request in an advance euthanasia directive would be acceptable, and it tolerates involuntary and involuntary euthanasia 7,30,31. However, the justification for a living will or living will may be ethically problematic because the request is not contemporaneous with the act and may not be evidence of the patient`s will at the time of euthanasia. The truth is that assisted suicide as public policy is full of loopholes and dangerous consequences, especially for the weak in our society.
