ANA Code Of Ethics Of Euthanasia In The United States

Today, there is a large debate over the situation and consequences of euthanasia. Euthanasia is the act of ending a human’s life by lethal injection or the stoppage of medication, or medical treatment. It has been denied by most of today’s population and is illegal in the fifty states of the United States. Usually, those who undergo this treatment have a disease or an “unbearable” pain somewhere in the body or the mind. Since there are ways, other than ending life, to stop pain caused by illness or depression, euthanasia is immoral, a disgrace to humanity, according to the Hippocratic Oath, and should be illegal throughout the United States.

There are several ethical and legal issues that are raised by the majority concerning the legalization of physician assisted suicide and the role of nurses in the process. Assisted suicide is a legal act of assisting those who are suffering from a deadly illness in ending their lives by providing them the means to do it (Griffith, 2014). Netherland was the first country to legalize physician assisted suicide. In 1994, Oregon became the first state to legalize physician assisted suicide by passing a bill called “death with dignity” followed by Washington and Montana. The law states that in order to be eligible for gaining access to assisted suicide, the patient must be left with 6 months to live, signed by two physicians and mentally stable enough to make decisions. Euthanasia is an alternative term used to describe the act of putting an end to a life in order to spare the individual’s suffering from an incurable or a painful disease process. It is classified to passive, active, involuntary and voluntary euthanasia. Active euthanasia is an act that is actively done to terminate life, while passive is when treatment is stopped in order to shorten the patient’s life. Involuntary euthanasia refers to a decision that is made by the health care providers without the patient knowledge and voluntary refers to patients that knowingly request to end their lives (Levy et al, 2013).

****In this article nurses had raised some extended questions, “what is the nursing role in treating patients than physician-assisted suicide?” First, we need to define physician-assisted suicide “the provision to a patient by a medical health professional of the means of ending his or her own life” (Dilemma,2010). As we all know that the patient has the right to deny any kind of treatment at the patient’s proposal so we cannot view it as physician-assisted suicide but other than a respectful manner to the patient’s nobility and one’s own choice. Nurses encounter problems when caring for their terminally ill patient who request for a physician-assisted suicide. The Code of Ethics for Nurses, is a standard principle for nurses to abide by. When the end-of-life questions arises for nurses, “The Code of Ethics for Nurses” is to guide their practice so no

Conducting this treatment can cause greater pain and suffering which opposes the nurse’s obligation. The nurse must then decide which prima facie obligation he or she is going to fulfil: beneficence or non-maleficence. Other prima facie obligations nurses must take into consideration are: duties of justice-if the patient wishes to end his or her own life with dignity the nurse must honor the patient’s decision, duties of fidelity-choosing not to participate in AID because it is morally unjust and goes against the fundamental values in nursing, and even duty of self-improvement-taking part of assisted suicide even though they do not agree because it is part of their job to do

Modern medical codes prohibit doctors to perform any kind of harmful action on a patient. However in these medical codes, assisted suicide is not mentioned (Medical Ethics). Many believe PAS does not harm the patient, but a generous act to relieve the patient from experiencing more pain than necessary. The patients who ask their doctors to end their lives are gathering all their pride, courage, and strength to have the voice to give such a request. In Oregon Death with Dignity Act: A Guidebook for Health Care Professionals supply information for healthcare professionals for a variety of issues nurses come across in states that allow PAS. Some of guidelines are: the patient needs to provide a fully informed, voluntary decision; applies only to patients who have only six months or less left to live; requires a written and two oral requests from the patient. (Lachman “PAS”). The patients desire a death where suffering and pain is not overcoming their whole mind and body, so there are instructions for the health care team to properly precede with their request without the interference of mistakes and discrimination. If these guidelines were accurately followed by everyone in the medical team, then there should not be a reason to oppose

Individuals who are young and healthy possibly never think about advance directives including a DNR order. Perhaps, it is when a parent or a loved one becomes terminally ill that forces one to look at end of life directives. As a hospital staff nurse, I have found that most people are familiar with the term Do Not Resuscitate (DNR); however, the term advance directives must be further explained to patients and family members. Although terminology can be a barrier, most patients making an end of life decisions have strong opinions concerning the end of life care. Expressing those feelings in legal documentation can be a challenge. The ANA Code of Ethics Provision 1.4 (Nursing Ethics, 2016) addresses the responsibility of the nurse to be knowledgeable

Nurses must have clear and defined rules when it applies to assisted suicide, and what they can

There has been much global debate as to whether physician-assisted suicide should be legalized. Physician-assisted suicide is defined as taking place “when a doctor helps a person to commit suicide by providing drugs for self-administration” (Tomlinson, Spector, Nurock, & Stott, 2015). Other means of assisted suicide include active euthanasia, which is an act undertaken by the physician himself that involves “…administering a lethal drug at the request of a patient with the explicit intention to hasten death” (Rietjens et al., 2006). For the purpose of this ethical review, the term “assisted suicide” will be used to envelop both active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide; the intent of this paper is to examine the arguments for and against assisted suicide from a nursing standpoint.

Cerminara and Perez said, “Euthanasia indicates cases in which the physician administers the lethal dose of medication with the intention of killing the patient” (Cerminara & Perez, 2000; Sears & Stanton, 2001). The physician is able to control the amount of medication a patient receives with the intent to kill the patient, without the patient feeling any pain. Barbuzzi stated, “Through this system, all patients seeking euthanasia or assisted suicide in the country are examined by at least two medical experts prior to the procedure, and medical, legal, and ethical experts analyze each case afterwards” (Barbuzzi, 2014). The system will be carefully analyzed from beginning to end, tracing every movement towards the person to ensure euthanasia was wanted and safely administered. Barbuzzi also said, “This aids in upholding and ensuring the autonomy of the patient in question leading up to the procedure, and ensures that acts of euthanasia or assisted suicide are reviewed for ethical breaches” (Barbuzzi, 2014). Constant thorough viewing of the entire euthanasia does not create any ethical breaches or misconduct of the

Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is a situation in which a physician gives a patient medications that the patient can then self-administer in order to bring about death. The patient is a competent adult in these situations and has requested this service of the physician. The doctor does not cause the death of the patient; he/she only supplies the means. (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2013; Pasterfield, Lewis, Carter, Hodgson & Wilkinson, 2013). Nurses are not allowed to participate in PAS according to the position statement released by the American Nurses Association (ANA, 2013). This is the case even though studies, such as the one carried out by Smith, Goy, Harvath, and Ganzini (2011), show that the quality of death for patients receiving PAS are no worse than those who do not participate in PAS and family members actually rate the physician assisted deaths as better. According to Walker (2011), six ethical principles guide health care. Two of these principles, autonomy and beneficence, are particularly interesting when discussing PAS.

First, nurses are not formed or trained to participate in assisted suicide despite their competence and their compassion in giving care to their patients. On the daily basis, they save so many lives and they also face different kind of ethical dilemmas, but assisted suicide is a very difficult, treacherous and complicated issue that can be challenging and hard for them to kill their patients with their own hands. Plus, Nurses can experience moral distress and conflict of conscience in these situations in answering to terminally diseased patients demand for assisted suicide death. In nursing schools, they are trained to heal, save lives, prevent illnesses and alleviate pain, they never signed up or trained to kill patients. They were always

The ethical debate on non-voluntary euthanasia is a complex issue due to its multifaceted nature. This topic examines the morality of ending a human’s life in circumstances where the person is incapable of issuing explicit consent. These cases would include utilizing euthanasia on very young children or someone in a vegetative state. There lacks consent with young children since they cannot speak to provide consent. Explicit consent is lacking with someone in a vegetative state since they are incapable of deciding at that moment to continue living or end their life.

Is the role of a medical professional to ensure the health and comfort of their patients, or to help them end their lives? Since Dr. Kevorkian assisted in the suicide of Janet Adkins in 1990, physician-assisted suicide (PAS) has been one of the most controversial issues in the medical field today. While some view it as an individual right, others view it as an unethical issue that goes against medical ethics and religious values. Mr. H. M. is an elderly man who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and no chance of improvement. After excruciating pain and suffering, he has decided to request physician-assisted death in his home state of Oregon. Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act (DDA) states that terminally ill patients are allowed to use

The controversy of a doctor assisting their patient who is already dying, end their life sooner to save them from continuous unnecessary pain and agony has been the topic of controversy for years. The practice of euthanasia is in my opinion a mercy and should not be banned because in reality it doesn’t physically hurt anyone. You could say it hurts the patient but then again that patient is already in tremendous pain or in an incapacitated state of no recovery, as in paralyzed or brain damage etc., so in reality it would actually help them by assisting ending their pain by assisted suicide. A doctors job is also always help their patients and the practice of assisted suicide in many ways is actually helping the person. However there has and probably always will be people who do not agree with the idea of a dying person end their life for sooner than nature had intended. This demographic would suggest that by dying by your own hand or assisted by a physician for medical reasons is still considered plain suicide. And for the religious people it is a sin by their beliefs. The people could also argue that it is not a person’s right to make that decision.

The ethical issue is Euthanasia, there are many groups that support or oppose this issue. Euthanasia is the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. The different viewpoints are based around whether it is humane to assist someone in dying and whether it should be illegal for someone to assist the death of someone who has a terminal illness and are suffering incurable pain. Groups that oppose the issue generally believe that it is inhumane to end someone 's life early, these groups generally believe these people should be given care and as much comfort as possible until their last days. Groups that support the issue generally believe that if someone has lost their mental state or are suffering unbearable pain that cannot be cured, that they should be allowed the option of euthanasia because it is inhumane to make someone suffer unbearable pain if they do not need to. An ethical issue brings systems of morality and principles into conflict, ethical issues are more subjective and opinionated and generally cannot be solved with facts, laws and truth. Euthanasia is an ethical issue because there are two equally unacceptable options. It is considered wrong