TechSynd
14-10-2006, 05:37
Here's a short essay I wrote on euthanasia (surprise surprise) and the hippocratic oath as it relates to euthanasia.
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The duty of every doctor is to limit the scope of pain and suffering of each patient. Doing so upholds their Hippocratic oath, an oath taken before becoming a doctor, which promises to do just this. In doing so, they become able to make choices concerning life and death, making choices which will affect potentially thousands of patients throughout their lifetime. While the Hippocratic oath is merely symbolic, meaning, there’s no physical force preventing them from abusing their medical promise, through symbolism, doctors make a promise to never harm their patients, or allow their patients to endure suffering, not necessarily in that order.
The Hippocratic oath recognizes, indirectly, the right to be alive, the right to be free from pain, the right to be free from harm, and the right to personal security and health, or well-being. It also indirectly recognizes the responsibility of patients to uphold, to review, and to listen to suggestions and prescribed treatments of their physicians. This important aspect, the responsibility of the patient, is often overlooked when one considers the ethical nature of the Hippocratic oath.
Going back through history, it was often deemed necessary for doctors to prescribe treatments ranging from leeches to blood-letting to herbal medicines to actual evolution. Leeches and blood-letting was believed to help stop the spread of certain diseases, and to stop the spread of poisons. While blood-letting is primitive, the theory of it helping stop the spread of poison is an actual treatment, albeit very primitive and costly in terms of human material. Through herbal medicines, many tribes throughout the world have used what we would consider to be primitive medicine to treat advanced diseases using basic herbs and plant material. These drugs have become more and more common as treatment methods of contemporary medicine often fail to treat several particular diseases. While the bulk of medical theory overall does treat diseases in the most convenient and advanced way, sometimes some diseases require a return to much more primitive methods, primitive only by comparison to modern medical practices.
Barely over a hundred years ago it was normal, acceptable behavior to not thoroughly wash one’s hands before surgery. Now, latex, masks, and eye-wear isolate the surgeon from their patient. In barely one hundred years we have gone from a much-more germ-ridden society to a society where it is finally acceptable to wash and bathe. Barely five-hundred years ago it was considered normal to only wash oneself twice a year, lest one should develop diseases. Barely over fifty years ago the first organ transplants were conducted. And now, barely a year ago, I volunteered to be an organ donor. Without modern medicine, I would not have been able to make that choice, knowing that someday when I die, I’ll give life to someone else.
Modern medicine has evolved from hand-washing to organ transplant to disease eradication. What was once normal is now barbaric, and what was strange and usual is now the norm. In this respect, we can judge the past of medical history and say this or that was primitive, and say that this or that was barbaric, but in the end, we must realize hindsight is twenty-twenty.
Today, modern medicine cannot reverse the process of living human “vegetables”. A person becomes imprisoned in a vegetative state often after suffering a serious head trauma, a serious stroke, or any other ailment primarily affecting the brain. They become mostly non-responsive to external stimuli, and most of them will never recover from their state.
The Hippocratic oath compels a doctor to do no harm. In this regard, how is it not harmful to keep a human being who will never be a human being again to remain imprisoned within their body, uncommunicative and unresponsive? Often, the argument in favor of keeping them vegetables is religious, and often the argument is that they have the right to live as vegetables. What sort of life is it to live like that? Like a human vegetable? The way to easily refute the religious argument is, if God wanted them to live, they wouldn’t need artificial machines to keep them alive. By putting them on artificial life-support, we violate the will of their God, thus contradicting their own religious argument.
Human vegetables are not the only ones who have the right to die with dignity as a human being should. People in great pain, pain which is caused by a disease or impairment that is irreparable and incurable, also should have the right to die. I myself wish to rather be taken off life-support than to live like a vegetable, or to experience great pain and suffering for the rest of my life. While chance of recovery is slim at best in most cases, pain is something that does not go away easily.
By taking the Hippocratic oath, a doctor promises to do no harm. Therefore, the oath compels the doctor to allow someone to die with dignity rather than live in pain. By keeping them alive against their wishes, the doctor does harm. But what if the patient wishes to live in pain? Or made it clear before becoming uncommunicative that they did not wish to have their lives naturally ended if they became a human vegetable? If they become a human vegetable, they no longer have an existence. Their conscious center is effectively dead. Their personality is also dead. Their identity is dead. They are dead. Their body remains, however. Their lives should be ended with dignity. However, patients who remain conscious, self-aware, and are suffering some sort of irreparable pain, and who wish to live, should be kept alive. The reason being, that which makes them who they are, their memories, personality, identity, and consciousness remains alive. In a human vegetable, the person that once was is forever lost. Even if they recover, it’s not the same person. Very few ever recover. By ending the life of someone who has suffered complete brain-death is not cruel nor is it a violation of the doctor’s oath to do no harm, but is, instead, an act of humanitarian mercy.
However, when does the line end, where does it become apparent that euthanasia and other practices are unethical?
Mental retardation is irreparable damage to the brain caused by flaws and genetic anomalies during conception of the individual. Mental retardation qualifying as lack of self-awareness should justify euthanasia as an act of mercy. An ability for basic conscious self-awareness means the individual is capable of functioning while being able to think and to know they exist. If they are incapable of those two things, they don’t exactly qualify as being “alive” in the sense of conscious awareness of that which is themselves and that which is around them.
Physical retardation does not qualify for potential lack of conscious self-awareness. Through physical therapy, greater mobility can be achieved, and through advanced surgeries available only recently through revolutionary medical breakthroughs, even greater mobility can be achieved.
A hard and difficult question asked by many is whether or not it is suitable for the human race to allow the spread and development of detrimental genes to pollute the gene pool. The answer is yes. It is the right of any citizen of any nation to mate with whomever they wish to, assuming consent is given. Genetic anomalies are often recessive, meaning the damage done to future generations is often rare. Additionally, in the future, detrimental genetic abnormalities may become a thing of the past with gene therapy treatments, and through observation of the progress of the human child during the fetal stages of development during pregnancy.
However, another question arises: is it appropriate to allow oneself to spread a known gene that may or may not cause severe or mild retardation, be it mental or physical, onto one’s offspring? Someone often overlooked is that by mating oneself to any other particular human being increases the risk of spreading anomalous genes into the gene pool anyways, since the chance of a gene mutating into a harmful gene does exist. In this regard, I must say that it is still the right of any citizen to mate with whomever they choose, regardless of their genetic background.
However, it is the right of any citizen to submit themselves to voluntary sterilization if they wish to limit the spread of a genetic anomaly known to cause harm if active. It should not be encouraged, but the option should remain freely available and freely voluntary to those who wish to do so.
It is the right of all citizens to live their lives freely and without interference. It is the right of all citizens to live with dignity, and to die with dignity. To let someone die may be the hardest thing a doctor can do, but it’s the ethical choice. To keep a dead person on life-support may be one of the cruelest things anyone can do, and is certainly the most unethical choice of the lot. Without ethics, human rights are meaningless, and without human rights, ethics are meaningless. The two go hand-in-hand, and must therefore be defined and valued.
The value of a human life is to be held as the greatest possible value. To keep a human life in pain, or imprisoned within a dead body, is to violate moral and ethical concerns. To allow a human life to be ended through consideration of mercy or through the wish of the individual is to uphold the right of life to end when the burden of this world has become too great to bear.
Sometimes, death is truly the dignified release.
----------------------
The duty of every doctor is to limit the scope of pain and suffering of each patient. Doing so upholds their Hippocratic oath, an oath taken before becoming a doctor, which promises to do just this. In doing so, they become able to make choices concerning life and death, making choices which will affect potentially thousands of patients throughout their lifetime. While the Hippocratic oath is merely symbolic, meaning, there’s no physical force preventing them from abusing their medical promise, through symbolism, doctors make a promise to never harm their patients, or allow their patients to endure suffering, not necessarily in that order.
The Hippocratic oath recognizes, indirectly, the right to be alive, the right to be free from pain, the right to be free from harm, and the right to personal security and health, or well-being. It also indirectly recognizes the responsibility of patients to uphold, to review, and to listen to suggestions and prescribed treatments of their physicians. This important aspect, the responsibility of the patient, is often overlooked when one considers the ethical nature of the Hippocratic oath.
Going back through history, it was often deemed necessary for doctors to prescribe treatments ranging from leeches to blood-letting to herbal medicines to actual evolution. Leeches and blood-letting was believed to help stop the spread of certain diseases, and to stop the spread of poisons. While blood-letting is primitive, the theory of it helping stop the spread of poison is an actual treatment, albeit very primitive and costly in terms of human material. Through herbal medicines, many tribes throughout the world have used what we would consider to be primitive medicine to treat advanced diseases using basic herbs and plant material. These drugs have become more and more common as treatment methods of contemporary medicine often fail to treat several particular diseases. While the bulk of medical theory overall does treat diseases in the most convenient and advanced way, sometimes some diseases require a return to much more primitive methods, primitive only by comparison to modern medical practices.
Barely over a hundred years ago it was normal, acceptable behavior to not thoroughly wash one’s hands before surgery. Now, latex, masks, and eye-wear isolate the surgeon from their patient. In barely one hundred years we have gone from a much-more germ-ridden society to a society where it is finally acceptable to wash and bathe. Barely five-hundred years ago it was considered normal to only wash oneself twice a year, lest one should develop diseases. Barely over fifty years ago the first organ transplants were conducted. And now, barely a year ago, I volunteered to be an organ donor. Without modern medicine, I would not have been able to make that choice, knowing that someday when I die, I’ll give life to someone else.
Modern medicine has evolved from hand-washing to organ transplant to disease eradication. What was once normal is now barbaric, and what was strange and usual is now the norm. In this respect, we can judge the past of medical history and say this or that was primitive, and say that this or that was barbaric, but in the end, we must realize hindsight is twenty-twenty.
Today, modern medicine cannot reverse the process of living human “vegetables”. A person becomes imprisoned in a vegetative state often after suffering a serious head trauma, a serious stroke, or any other ailment primarily affecting the brain. They become mostly non-responsive to external stimuli, and most of them will never recover from their state.
The Hippocratic oath compels a doctor to do no harm. In this regard, how is it not harmful to keep a human being who will never be a human being again to remain imprisoned within their body, uncommunicative and unresponsive? Often, the argument in favor of keeping them vegetables is religious, and often the argument is that they have the right to live as vegetables. What sort of life is it to live like that? Like a human vegetable? The way to easily refute the religious argument is, if God wanted them to live, they wouldn’t need artificial machines to keep them alive. By putting them on artificial life-support, we violate the will of their God, thus contradicting their own religious argument.
Human vegetables are not the only ones who have the right to die with dignity as a human being should. People in great pain, pain which is caused by a disease or impairment that is irreparable and incurable, also should have the right to die. I myself wish to rather be taken off life-support than to live like a vegetable, or to experience great pain and suffering for the rest of my life. While chance of recovery is slim at best in most cases, pain is something that does not go away easily.
By taking the Hippocratic oath, a doctor promises to do no harm. Therefore, the oath compels the doctor to allow someone to die with dignity rather than live in pain. By keeping them alive against their wishes, the doctor does harm. But what if the patient wishes to live in pain? Or made it clear before becoming uncommunicative that they did not wish to have their lives naturally ended if they became a human vegetable? If they become a human vegetable, they no longer have an existence. Their conscious center is effectively dead. Their personality is also dead. Their identity is dead. They are dead. Their body remains, however. Their lives should be ended with dignity. However, patients who remain conscious, self-aware, and are suffering some sort of irreparable pain, and who wish to live, should be kept alive. The reason being, that which makes them who they are, their memories, personality, identity, and consciousness remains alive. In a human vegetable, the person that once was is forever lost. Even if they recover, it’s not the same person. Very few ever recover. By ending the life of someone who has suffered complete brain-death is not cruel nor is it a violation of the doctor’s oath to do no harm, but is, instead, an act of humanitarian mercy.
However, when does the line end, where does it become apparent that euthanasia and other practices are unethical?
Mental retardation is irreparable damage to the brain caused by flaws and genetic anomalies during conception of the individual. Mental retardation qualifying as lack of self-awareness should justify euthanasia as an act of mercy. An ability for basic conscious self-awareness means the individual is capable of functioning while being able to think and to know they exist. If they are incapable of those two things, they don’t exactly qualify as being “alive” in the sense of conscious awareness of that which is themselves and that which is around them.
Physical retardation does not qualify for potential lack of conscious self-awareness. Through physical therapy, greater mobility can be achieved, and through advanced surgeries available only recently through revolutionary medical breakthroughs, even greater mobility can be achieved.
A hard and difficult question asked by many is whether or not it is suitable for the human race to allow the spread and development of detrimental genes to pollute the gene pool. The answer is yes. It is the right of any citizen of any nation to mate with whomever they wish to, assuming consent is given. Genetic anomalies are often recessive, meaning the damage done to future generations is often rare. Additionally, in the future, detrimental genetic abnormalities may become a thing of the past with gene therapy treatments, and through observation of the progress of the human child during the fetal stages of development during pregnancy.
However, another question arises: is it appropriate to allow oneself to spread a known gene that may or may not cause severe or mild retardation, be it mental or physical, onto one’s offspring? Someone often overlooked is that by mating oneself to any other particular human being increases the risk of spreading anomalous genes into the gene pool anyways, since the chance of a gene mutating into a harmful gene does exist. In this regard, I must say that it is still the right of any citizen to mate with whomever they choose, regardless of their genetic background.
However, it is the right of any citizen to submit themselves to voluntary sterilization if they wish to limit the spread of a genetic anomaly known to cause harm if active. It should not be encouraged, but the option should remain freely available and freely voluntary to those who wish to do so.
It is the right of all citizens to live their lives freely and without interference. It is the right of all citizens to live with dignity, and to die with dignity. To let someone die may be the hardest thing a doctor can do, but it’s the ethical choice. To keep a dead person on life-support may be one of the cruelest things anyone can do, and is certainly the most unethical choice of the lot. Without ethics, human rights are meaningless, and without human rights, ethics are meaningless. The two go hand-in-hand, and must therefore be defined and valued.
The value of a human life is to be held as the greatest possible value. To keep a human life in pain, or imprisoned within a dead body, is to violate moral and ethical concerns. To allow a human life to be ended through consideration of mercy or through the wish of the individual is to uphold the right of life to end when the burden of this world has become too great to bear.
Sometimes, death is truly the dignified release.