So I'm taking an Ethics course this semester(most things have to do with nursing), but I thought I would post a couple 'situations' a week, that I get for homework, to get to know what you all think about these things. If you have an opinion and would like to share it I would appreciate it! I figured it would help me get to know you better and also spark some good Biblical discussion about these things (because at school the discussions are not Biblically based). So, if you would like to share your opinions, thoughts, and beliefs it would be awesome! If you're not interested that's fine too! Just so you know, I will not use what you say for my homework answers, or even talk about it in class; it will stay here :)
#1. People have the right to request assistance in dying from health care professionals, and the health care team should be able to assist in the person's death while being protected from the law?
#2. Capital punishment is unethical?
#3. Abortion is ethical?
#4. Basic healthcare needs should be accessible to everyone in a country that claims to be concerned about it's people?
#5. You will donate your organs after death?
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Excellent idea, baby!
ReplyDelete1. No, doctors take an oath to "do no harm." Murdering or helping another to commit suicide should be treated as such in a court of law.
2. Capital punishment is a sentence carried out by a state or the federal government against persons who have demonstrated that they cannot abide by the rule of law and respect the rights of others in the most extreme way possible. It is not unethical, and sometimes (unfortunately) necessary to protect society at large.
3. Abortion is the murder of an innocent, unborn child. Life begins at conception, the fact that a fetus cannot survive outside of the mother's womb until a certain point should not deprive it of it's God given and Constitutional right to life. It is indeed unethical.
4. It's impossible to make generalizations about make believe or hypothetical countries. In the United States, emergency medical care is availble to every single person in the country, citizen or not. A hospital cannot rufuse services to anyone in an emergency. It is not, and should not, be the government's responsibility to provide healthcare for the populace, and is outside of the federal government's juridiction as outlined in it's enumerated powers in the Constitution.
5. It depends on how old I am. I get nervous that health care professionals will not do everything they can to revive me if they feel my organs would be more useful to harvest for others.
Interesting questions.
I also think this is a great idea! But only if we DO NOT argue with each other, I hate that.
ReplyDeleteI always try to remind myself about the difference between morality and ethics before discussing things like this; remember R.C. Sproul in the Truth Project said:
“Morality looks at the verb ‘is’. Ethics looks at the word ‘ought’. The distinction has been obscured in our day. People use the term ‘morality’ and ethics as synonyms. That leads to statistical morality. We go around the nation seeing what people are doing, how many people are cheating on their spouses. Good is determined by what is instead of what ought to be."
-emphasis added be me!
NOW on to the show!
1. People do have the right to ask for assistance in dieing, in as much as the First Amendment protects Freedom of Speech, but they should have no expectation of receiving the "care" they seek. Further more, it should never be required of a "health care" provider to assist people in there death. If they do, they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law for the crimes they have committed.
2.Capital Punishment can be unethical. Most often, it is not. When a factually innocent person is put to death, however, for a crime s/he did not commit, even just once, it makes me rethink the whole issue.
3.Ironic that in our culture capital punishment is bad, abortion good. WHAT?! Of course abortion is unethical. It ought never happen. Your are murdering someone, how is that ethical?
4.I guess I agree with that statement. I'm not sure what the implications are, however. The word "should" really throws me for a loop...
5.I am on the organ donor list. I have a little heart on my license to prove it. But don't tell anybody, okay?
#1. People have the right to request assistance in dying from health care professionals, and the health care team should be able to assist in the person's death while being protected from the law?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Scott on this one. People always should have the right to request, but that doesn't mean they will have any reason to expect it to actually happen. The "slippery slope" I see in this question is to what extent will doctors go to keep someone alive? I mean, if a doctor withholds some sort of care (however minor or extreme it is), a person might die because of some other cause. That is, if someone is dying because of X, but the doctor could to Y to possibly save them, should they be REQUIRED to do Y? If a doctor is required to keep someone "living" for as long as possible, then people who are bedridden, in lots of pain, or possibly even in a coma are being nursed along, much longer than they would have been had there been no medical care.
When it's my time to go, I am not sure how many times I want them trying to revive me to keep me going. Is it life at that point?
#2. Capital punishment is unethical?
Requires more thinking than I am prepared to do right now.
#3. Abortion is ethical?
No. But, let me raise another slippery slope that I have struggled with. What if it comes down to baby's life vs mother's life? As in there is a complication with pregnancy and for whatever reason it is determined that the mother is in serious danger because of the way that the baby is developing. How do you reconcile such a situation where two lives are in the balance? Do you try to "save" both the mother and the baby, even if all signs point to the baby's death if there is an intervening action? Is that abortion even if you were trying to "save" it? Is it abortion if you purposely terminated it trying to save the mother? Does it boil down to intention instead of what actions were taken at this point?
#4. Basic healthcare needs should be accessible to everyone in a country that claims to be concerned about it's people?
Yes, I think they should be accessible, but I don't think that a government run system is the answer. Please see my previous comments on this subject in an earlier blog post.
#5. You will donate your organs after death?
I was surprised this was even a question. If people want to "keep" their organs or if they don't... Whatever. My feeling is that I won't have a use for them anymore, so have at it.