I have the right to choose to die!

[kintaro_kun]

Originally Posted by Shoblast

Its nothing really new anyway.

Doctors have been forced to watch as patient die from easily curable injuries because the patient is a Jehovah's Witness and those loonies refuse blood transfusions.

there are numerous reasons why cults should be stemmed. oops, in near danger of breaking the religion vilification act!

[youngyew]

There's never a good definition of a cult anyway.

[hunliang]

But is that only the right to die of natural cause or the right to be euthanised?

[Zeroth]

Originally Posted by kintaro_kun

there are numerous reasons why cults should be stemmed. oops, in near danger of breaking the religion vilification act!

They are not cults dude

[kintaro_kun]

Originally Posted by Zeroth

They are not cults dude

jehovahs witnesses, latter day saints(mormons), 7th day adventists, scientology, fa lun gong etc are cults, dude.

[youngyew]

Why? Apart from being seen as cult and labelled as cult, what are the real reason something is a cult but not a valid religion; and vice versa?

By the way, back to the topic, it's really hard to define what a doctor should do.

For example, doctors often provide a huge dose of morphine to terminally ill patients for analgesic purposes; but this is also known to shorten the patient's life. Should you give the morphine or not then?

If you know that doing something morally good might have a morally bad effect, is your action justified? This is a pretty central point for contention in the debate of euthanasia, assisted suicide, do not resuscitate etc. It is called the principle of double effect.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ethics...leeffect.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect (the first few paragraphs a pretty badly written in my opinion )

A similar question is this:

Do you think that euthanasia, assisted suicide, not rescuing a dying patient, and withdrawing artificial life support are ethically different from each other?

[hunliang]

I can't believe that is being practice in some parts of the world. I'm pretty sure that is not practiced here in Australia.

Although there are arguments for that, I still think that is no different from murder. No matter what the reason is. Giving a large dose of morphine to a patient who don't need it is equivalent to providing an intended overdose to the patient.

And i think euthanasia, assisted suicide, not rescuing a dying patient and withdrawing artificial life support are all ethically different.

I think when a patient is at terminal stage, we should not prolong life, or shorten life and let nature takes its course.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide = active intervention to end life.
Not rescuing a dying patient = no intervention to prolong or shorten life
Withdrawing artificial life support = active intervention to end life.

[youngyew]

Originally Posted by hunliang

I can't believe that is being practice in some parts of the world. I'm pretty sure that is not practiced here in Australia.

Although there are arguments for that, I still think that is no different from murder. No matter what the reason is. Giving a large dose of morphine to a patient who don't need it is equivalent to providing an intended overdose to the patient.

What I meant was giving large dose of morphine to a terminally ill patient in pain, the most common example being terminal stage cancer.

[hunliang]

Originally Posted by youngyew

What I meant was giving large dose of morphine to a terminally ill patient in pain, the most common example being terminal stage cancer.

Oh i understand that, i meant only adequate amount of pain relieve should be given to the patient and not a sudden large dose of morphine. I dun think there is such thing as maximum dose of morphine. I would assume a terminally ill patient would have received morphine for a long period of time and is being slowly titrated to provide the right amount of pain relieve.

[youngyew]

Originally Posted by hunliang

Oh i understand that, i meant only adequate amount of pain relieve should be given to the patient and not a sudden large dose of morphine. I dun think there is such thing as maximum dose of morphine. I would assume a terminally ill patient would have received morphine for a long period of time and is being slowly titrated to provide the right amount of pain relieve.

In patients with cancer pain, the "right amount" of pain relief entails morphine dose that depresses respiration and cardiac function.

The scenario described is not about giving something like 300mg of morphine in one go and killing the patient in the next hour. It's more like having the patients on a consistent high dose of morphine (yes this is often the "right amount of pain relief" to make the pain bearable), and that dose shortens the patient's life probably by days.

The argument about "the best thing is let nature take its course" is not self-consistent if you view it in the context of healthcare in the whole - we have been taking antibiotics and cutting out inflammed appendices for decades, and doing those are violating nature's course.