Journal of medical ethics
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This paper tells the story of a doctor in a vegetative state. The approach towards him is quite different from that towards a common patient. The other physicians cannot deal with this situation with the necessary open mind.
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Doctors may be thrust into the difficult situation of treating friends and colleagues. A doctor's response to this situation is strongly influenced by his or her emotions and by medical tradition. ⋯ Why does this happen and can doctors avoid it happening? These issues are discussed in this commentary on Dr. Crisci's paper, 'The ultimate curse.'
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Journal of medical ethics · Feb 1995
Peter Singer and 'lives not worth living'--comments on a flawed argument from analogy.
The Australian bioethicist Peter Singer has presented an intriguing argument for the opinion that it is quite proper (morally) to deem the lives of certain individuals not worth living and so to kill them. The argument is based on the alleged analogy between the ordinary clinical judgement that a life with a broken leg is worse than a life with an intact leg (other things being equal), and that the broken leg therefore ought to be mended, on the one hand, and the judgement that the lives of some individuals, for example, severely disabled infants, are not worth living and therefore ought to be terminated, on the other. In the present article it is argued that Singer's argument is flawed, intellectually and/or ethically.
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In the Netherlands the government's proposal for the legal regulation of euthanasia, assisted suicide and the termination of a patient's life without request has been approved by Parliament. The defence of this proposal is to a large extent based on a specific interpretation of data about the practice of euthanasia in that country, published in 1991 (the Remmelink Report). ⋯ It is argued that the new law will not guarantee an improvement to this situation. In short, the new law will not protect effectively the lives of patients, and must, therefore, be open to ethical and legal objection.