Euthanasia On Patients example essay topic

Euthanasia-A Critique was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on June 20, 1990. Peter A. Singer and Mark Siegler are the two authors of this article. Singer is a graduate of the University of Toronto Medical School and holds a master's in public health from Yale University. He is assistant professor of medicine and associate director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Toronto. Siegler got hi medical degree from the University of Chicago. He is the director of the Center of Clinical Medical Ethics at the university.

He has written more then 100 articles and six books. The two authors believe that the medical community should rethink the move towards the use of euthanasia. Singer and Siegler discuss cost containment and what it entails, such as insurance. The expense of hospital stays and the cutting down on nursing staff at hospitals affects it.

Many trauma centers are also closing down. They bring up the social injustice of euthanasia and how the poor and elderly will be affected. The minorities, uninsured and others could be taken advantage of by health care providers. Other problems are aroused when ethics come into the picture. The authors talk about the Hippocratic oath, religion, and people's ethical traditions.

Runkle 2 When dealing with euthanasia issues arise, one of them is cost containment. When hospitals and doctors run tests it cost money, many tests are expensive and have to be repeated often. Health insurance can be expensive and many people choose either not to get insurance or can't afford it. When people don't have insurance it costs all of the taxpayers and hospital to cover the expense. This would encourage doctors to perform euthanasia on patients that are not paying for themselves just to get rid of them. Not having to spend money on patient's medicine will keep cost at minimum along with long hospital stays with patients being kept alive with machines costing a lot of money everyday.

There are many trauma centers closing throughout the country making health care shortages. This leads to over crowding and the possibility of doctors involuntarily killing patients to make room is the hospital. Many groups of society will be targeted for euthanasia. Some of the groups are the uninsured, poor, elderly, minorities, and mentally disabled. Doctors would target these individuals because there less desirable role on society. Most doctors would not think is this way but they are out there.

The uninsured using taxpayer's money to get treatment, doctor performs euthanasia to get rid of a problem. Elderly fall subject to this because they don't have as long to live so the doctor sees fit to get rid of them now. Minorities are victim because the doctor could have racial problems and take it out on the patient. Being mentally disabled the doctor can take advantage of the situation and wrongfully terminate a life.

All Runkle 3 these issues are up for debate and the authors think they are wrong to pick on certain groups of people. In the realm of ethics there are many factors to think about. All people view this topic differently thus making it so hard to get a definite answer. There is the Hippocratic oath that doctors take when they enter service.

It tells of the ethics and what is expected of them as doctors. These rules are up for interpretation and can be seen in many ways. People want the right to choose and if some one wants euthanasia to happen they should be able to choose it. Religion is different for all people and this determines on where they stand on euthanasia.

The many different religions have different views on such a topic. As someone grows up they are bread to believe in certain ethical beliefs. The difference in beliefs will also change their thoughts on euthanasia. Euthanasia is a very controversial subject and can be looked at by many ways. There are arguments for and against it, the two authors Singer and Siegler, suggest that we look for other means to our health situation. You can look at it as helping a suffering person pass on or killing, murdering, another human being.

Some ones ethics is what puts them on either side and every ones ethics are different. The sacred integrity of medicine is in jeopardy because of euthanasia and where doctors stand on the subject. We can all ask the question, how high do we value human life?