Dead End

a philosophical problem

Pro-euthanasia senator Dr Bob Brown stated that statistics show about 4400 Australians each year are being given a lethal injection. That averages to one every two hours. The number taken off medication, life support systems and food and water is thought to be higher. That means there is one person being written off every hour, of every day, of every year!

Let me now raise the issue of giving a patient a lethal injection. Though this breaks the present law, would you still administer it?
Doctor: Yes, in voluntary cases.
Lawyer: Ok, but what is written up as the cause of death? Do doctors put it as death by lethal injection or as death from terminal cancer, or whatever the dread disease was?
Doctor: The disease would be shown as the cause. The treatment the patient received would be appended.
Lawyer: I suggest that because a lethal injection is illegal it will be described euphemistically to conceal the fact, assuming it is mentioned at all.
Doctor: I grant that "medicalese" can hide a multitude of sins. In many cases the true cause of death will not be entered on the death certificate.
Lawyer: That could, indirectly, prove disastrous on a vast scale. Imagine that you are researching cancer, endeavouring to find a cure, even testing drugs on willing patients. You do a statistical analysis of death certificates but dump your research data because you can't be sure which are true and which are the euthanasia deaths falsifying your figures. This may cause you to throw away a cure because it looks like a failure. Euthanasia may, indirectly, be delaying cures of the very diseases it seeks to ameliorate.
Doctor: That may be so, and I now see another danger. If a euthanased patient's death is not honestly recorded it might seem that the life-saving drug of his treatment was a failure and result in it being withdrawn from other patients.
Lawyer: Do you see the implications? A doctor who practices euthanasia, has to

• break the Hippocratic Oath that governs his ethics.
• break the law by administering a lethal injection.
• break the law by falsifying the death certificate.

A few days after the Tasmanian nurses met, the newspaper told of a nurse from Canberra who was compiling a catalogue of doctors and NURSES prepared to practice euthanasia. How did nurses get involved in euthanasia decisions and practices? It is outside the bounds of their duties. In the same article another nurse confessed that she had twice caused death by illegally administering a lethal injection.
Doctor: There is no way that nurses ought involve themselves in euthanasia decisions. They know next to nothing of a patient's medical status.

Lawyer: I will now return to the legal case brought against you. Let me run over the facts. Mary, your patient, lives in Tasmania but was holidaying in Adelaide when she lapsed into a coma. Although she remained in the coma for quite some time she needed no medication but needed food supplied through tubes. You and Mary's husband, John, stood at Mary's bedside. What did you say to him?
Doctor: I said, "I am sorry to say this, John, but Mary's situation is hopeless. She is in a vegetative state and will never recover. She is brain-dead and knows nothing and can feel nothing. I suggest that you ask for her feeding tubes to be removed so that she can live or die as nature chooses. But it is your decision and yours alone, I can only offer you my best advice."
Lawyer: If John were to follow your advice and Mary were to die, am I right in thinking the pro-euthanasia lobby would have regarded John as a true caring person who had done the right thing?
Doctor: Yes, and would have held him up as an example to the public of what they ought do in similar circumstances.
Lawyer: I understand that John is fairly religious, but what was his reply to your suggestion?
Doctor: He said, "Even though I am satisfied that you have done everything possible for Mary I am not going to take your advice. I want you to continue to provide all that is necessary to keep my wife alive. I intend taking her home to Tasmania and to care for her."
Lawyer: I will give the sequel from my preliminary notes. 'Normal support continued. Some weeks later, Mary suddenly awoke. She was as mentally alert as before lapsing into the coma. She is now out of hospital and leading a normal life. Amazingly, Mary was able to repeat the bedside conversation between the doctor and her husband. Although she was in a coma and the doctor's diagnosis was that she was brain-dead, she heard every word. The only apparent consequence of her stay in hospital is that she now stumbles.' Is all this a fact?
Doctor: Yes.
Lawyer: The case against you will probably hinge on Mary's stumbling; the claim being that its manifestation resulted from, and is evidence of, your deliberate malpractice, in:-

• that the nursing staff failed to provide the normal nursing care given bed-ridden patients. She should have been rotated regularly several times a day to preclude loss of circulation, which initially leads to paralysis in the feet followed by gangrene and then death.
• that although John asked for the same care to continue, someone thought Mary ought be let die and ordered withdrawal of normal services.
• that your incorrect diagnosis, unsupported by a second opinion, would have caused Mary, though comatose but sentient, to suffer a protracted period of pain, starvation and eventual death.
• that your failure to institute inquiries to determine if negligence by the nursing staff was responsible for Mary's disability is tantamount to an admission that you were responsible and intended to euthanase her.