The field of medicine is a minefield that’s strewn with explosives; on one hand, doctors are treated as Gods who can perform miracles and save lives and cure illnesses. On the other, if they’re not able to do what their patients expect them to, they’re denounced as incompetent or careless. What patients often forget is that a doctor is first and foremost a person like everyone else. They also don’t understand that their profession does not come with guarantees. If it did, then they would literally be playing God in people’s lives.
While it’s true that we must accept the doctor’s decision and trust him/her to provide us with the best possible care, there are times when the decision could be left to the patient – as in the case of abortion or euthanasia. Arguments for and against these two subjects rage back and forth, but there doesn’t seem to be (and there will never be) a consensus as to what is right and what is wrong. Pro-life or pro-choice, which should it be?
Medical ethics prohibit doctors from taking a life; in fact, they’re honor-bound to do all they can to save it. But what happens when there’s a conflict of interest between the patient’s wishes and the doctor’s ethics? There are a number of scenarios that can play out under these circumstances:
· When a doctor is bound by his own sense of morality: In this case, the law may allow the procedure, be it an abortion or euthanasia, but the doctor’s personal ethical values and/or religious sentiments will not allow him/her to do what they’re requested to do.
· When the law prevents the procedure but the doctor feels that it’s ok as long as the patient wants it: Legal killing is not allowed in most of the states, so doctors who assist terminally ill patients in killing themselves in these states end up paying a very costly price if they’re caught. Their license is revoked and they’re not allowed to practice medicine again, besides being the main accused (homicide and/or manslaughter) in a criminal trial.
· When the law requires it but the doctor (or the medical community) is against it: This happens in the case of legal executions or capital punishment. While the courts are trying to do the best they can to ensure that death row inmates are put to death as quickly as painlessly as possible (the only way this can be done is using chemicals like sodium pentathol, pancuronium and potassium chloride), the doctors (read anesthesiologists) who are asked to be present when the lethal injection is administered baulk at the thought of assisting a death, however evil the victim may be. Even if their personal preferences allow them to agree, they’re in danger of being ostracized by the general public and the medical community, no matter what the courts decide.
It’s hard to qualify where issues like abortion, capital punishment and euthanasia stand on the moral medical scale. Although it’s easy at first glance to say that the taking of a human life, for any reason, is wrong, once we assume the eyes of the people concerned – the mother who cannot afford to give her baby a good life because of poverty or other reasons, the terminally-ill patient who would die now rather than suffer a more painful death a few months down the line, and the family and friends of the victims who died at the hands of those on death row – we’re not so sure where our loyalties lie. And as long as this indecision remains, medical ethics will continue to be a hotly debated topic for years to come.