Editorial: Assisted suicide - right to die or duty to die?
John Kleinsman
Issue 31, August 2010
The debate about euthanasia, or more accurately 'Physician Assisted Suicide' – let's not dress it up by using soft language like 'death with dignity' – has reared its head again. We are told that there should be a legal right for certain persons (specifically doctors) to be able to kill an individual when that is what the individual wants. This claim to the right to assisted suicide, which comes out of a deep seated fear of the dying process, will have far reaching effects on the elderly and the sick should it become legalised.
We need a society which cares, not kills
Erik Leipoldt
Issue 31, August 2010
Erik Leipoldt acquired quadriplegia in 1978 after a diving accident. He has just published a book on attitudes of Dutch and Australian people with quadriplegia towards euthanasia and asks whether we really need to legalise euthanasia.
The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP) in New Zealand
Theresa Mackenzie
Issue 31, August 2010
Care of the dying is urgent care. We only get one opportunity to get it right.
The modern hospice movement was championed by Dame Cecily Saunders in 1967 with the opening of St Christopher's Hospice in London. The driving force of the hospice movement was the desire to transform the experience of dying patients. The philosophy that underpins hospice care is that death is a normal part of life and that all dying people deserve to be free from pain and treated with respect and compassion. It is this model of excellence in the care of the dying that a multidisciplinary pathway steering group from the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital and Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool (UK) strove to transfer to other care settings in the mid 1990's when they identified integrated care pathways as a potential tool to improve the care of dying patients. Care pathways are frameworks that help standardise and review quality of care and ensure that clinical care is based on the latest evidence and research.[1]
Bioethics in the News - Dealing with the Alzheimer's "Tsunami"
Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible and progressive brain disease that slowly but inexorably destroys memory, thinking skills, and eventually the ability to carry out the simplest tasks. The staggering growth in persons being diagnosed with Alzheimer's has led many to describe it as a "tsunami in waiting." According to recent statistics one in two Americans in their eighties have this disease, and one in ten over sixty-five. Alzheimer's death rates are up 47 percent since 2000. Alzheimer's is now the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. (See http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/jul_aug_contrarian). While there is no clear understanding of what starts the disease process, it is known that damage to the brain begins 10 to 20 years before any problems become evident.
Editorial: Euthanasia "let's at least have a robust debate!"
John Kleinsman
Issue 32, November 2010
We all want to protect and promote the dignity of persons at the end of life.
One way of understanding the euthanasia debate is to see it as a disagreement about how best to promote and protect the dignity of persons who are dying.
Speaking from the bedside: palliative medicine and euthanasia don't mix
Sinead Donnelly
Issue 32, November 2010
The word 'euthanasia' comes from a Greek word literally meaning 'good death'. Everyone supports this concept. But those proposing the legalisation of euthanasia believe that, when requested, the deliberate killing of patients by their doctors is an appropriate way of providing a 'good death'. I disagree with this view.
Euthanasia would hurt doctors and society
Professor Margaret Somerville
We must consider the damage to medicine if physicians are allowed to kill. Physicians' and nurses' absolute rejection of intentionally inflicting death is necessary to maintaining people's and society's trust in their own physicians and the profession of medicine as a whole.
The rationale behind the euthanasia argument: is there a right to be killed?
John Kleinsman
Issue 32, November 2010
People support euthanasia for various reasons. This article will attempt to explore some of the commonly cited reasons used to justify its legalisation.
Subcategories
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Euthanasia
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