Death with Dignity
I feel that the baseline knowledge I have of death with dignity is very little as the only time I remember learning about it was in ethics class freshman year. From what I do remember is that it is essentially the belief that terminally ill patients should have the right to voluntarily take their own life by a medical professional. While this can be a very controversial topic for people, I find myself agreeing with the death with dignity act. I feel that if a person who has a terminal illness, they should have the option to go out peacefully on their own terms than potentially being miserable waiting for the illness to take over. However, I do see why people are against death with dignity. The idea of having a doctor helping a patient take their own life is a very strange idea to wrap one’s head around.
I think that death with dignity directly challenges the ethical principle of do no harm. In the case of death with dignity the health care team is doing the opposite of that. However, I think that as health care providers we need to make sure that the patient’s needs are being met. If that patient decides that they truly want to go through with it the health care team needs to respect the decision. The process to get the prescription is not as simple as it may seem, which I think that if a patient is able to go through the steps, then it is a decision that they fell strongly about. While the line becomes blurred about doing no harm to the patient with death with dignity, I believe that we as health care professionals need to make sure that the patient is getting the level of care that they want.
