Although euthanasia is a viable medical practice to end suffering in vulnerable patients, moral considerations cloud its administration. Many society members disapprove of death on legal and religious grounds. It is considered to undermine human rights to life, derail the purpose of palliative care, and affect the doctor-patient relationship.
Euthanasia is an infringement of humans’ right to life. Humans have an inherent right to life in the constitutions of all the nations across the globe. However, euthanasia depends on the legal framework of the country where it is practiced. According to the British Medical Association.org (2021), Colombia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Spain, and several states in the USA have passed legislation that permits euthanasia. These legislations allow doctors to administer and prescribe medication for self-administration and, in some cases, allow non-medical professionals to assist in the end of life. The majority of the remaining countries highly prohibit euthanasia. Critics of these legislations argue that this infringes on patients’ right to die with dignity. In the United Kingdom, it is illegal and could be prosecuted as manslaughter. Human life is invaluable, and deliberate termination can not be justified by the end of suffering.
Euthanasia derails the purpose of palliative care. It diverts the actions that should be implemented for patients in intense pain. It will induce incompetence in palliative care since there is an option of ending the patient’s life. Palliative care aids in relieving suffering from patients with chronic and severe health complications through comprehensive medical care (Fontalis et al. 2018). It assesses the patient’s physical and psychosocial symptoms to comfort them and their families. Euthanasia undermines the purpose of palliative care, which is to ensure the patients’ life expectancy is prolonged even during their battle with chronic illnesses. Considering the procedural and consultative approach employed in palliative care, euthanasia is majorly a non-option. It overrides the narrow chances of a patient’s survival from their battle with health complications. Euthanasia’s critics view it as a presumptive move to end a patient’s life without intensive monitoring of their health condition. More so, euthanasia will erase the relevance of palliative care services since it provides a shorter route to “ending the patient’s suffering”.
Euthanasia affects the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship,, which is invaluable in medical practice. It contrasts rules set by medical associations such as the American Medical Association. Doctors are obliged by their profession to help their patients. Medical practice is mainly inclined towards healing rather than killing. When doctors fulfill a fraction of patients’ wishes through killing, they violate their general role of caring (Pedri, 2023). They affect the rest of the patient’s trust in their ability to save their lives when battling chronic medical conditions. Laws shape culture, which in turn shapes beliefs and behavior. Medical practitioners fear that the normalization of euthanasia will hinder patient openness to their medical complications during chronic illnesses. They foresee mistaken scenarios of patient’s openness to pleas for euthanasia (Pedri, 2023). Euthanasia will hinder transparency in medical practice and affect patients’ perception of their medical practitioners.
Euthanasia might have provided alternatives to patients in intense care. However, human life is sacred and should be ended by its giver. More so, it is immoral that medical personnel end a human’s life even with their consent. Alternative healthcare methods, such as palliative care, are useful when handling patients with chronic complications. Medical professionals must employ competitive end-of-life care methods to uphold a positive patient-doctor relationship.
References
British Medical Association.org (2021). Physician assisted dying legislation around the world. https://www.bma.org.uk/media/4402/bma-where-is-pad-permitted-internationally-aug-2021.pdf
Fontalis, A., Prousali, E., & Kulkarni, K. (2018). Euthanasia and assisted dying: what is the current position and what are the key arguments informing the debate?. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 111(11), 407-413. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0141076818803452
Pedri, L. (2023). Patient-Physician Relationship and MAID: Trust and Autonomy. In Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) in Canada: Key Multidisciplinary Perspectives (pp. 385-398). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-30002-8_25
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