dc.description.abstract | Recently cancer disease becomes no1. of the top 10 reasons of death in Taiwan, by average one of the four patients’ death due to cancer. Terminal cancerous patients die tough, and exhausted with unbearable pain. When health medication doesn’t work to dying people, professionals suggest alleviating “care” instead. By the definition of The Alleviation Medication of Law, “terminal patient” means that patients getting serious disease, diagnosed cureless by their doctors, and proof in medicine tells the dying course in approaching is unavoidable. “Dying patient” presented in added laws means the one who is going to be death. However, in certain cases, pain caused by cancer disease can’t be diminished by endeavoring in care, so for several years claims of physician-assisted suicide have arisen everywhere.
Cause of medication useless, pain unresolvable, by the basis principle of respecting patients’ autonomy, this thesis will discuss the morality of physician-assisted suicide, on according to rights of nonmalevolence, beneficence, autonomy and informed consent. On ground of sympathizing patients’ suffering, physician-assisted suicide’s purpose is to end meaningless proceeding lives while patients actively ask, to respect patients’ autonomy. On the perspective of patients, everyone wants a “good death”, but some accidents are originally unresisted, otherwise death cause of diseases is always not a good result. Patients’ everyday living needs others’ help, under illness and medical techniques, shaped weak, and loses their individual dignity, life meanings. If “good death” compasses death of illness, then it can reach the degree that “good death” of more people will be available.
On the perspective of families, their biggest hope is to be accompanied with patients during their tough dying, nevertheless in the course of natural death, it is often hard to control the death time exactly. If the death planned, patients can perfectly arrange things and finish them completely, families otherwise can be accompanied with patients’ dying trips at that key moment.
However, because there are no pleasing support arguments in literature, until now it is still many fighting in physician-assisted suicide, but can’t proceed to legislation. Physician-assisted suicide means professionals help patients to suicide themselves, while voluntary active euthanasia concerns about second or third homicide so the morality of physician-assisted suicide gives priority to voluntary active euthanasia. Because the moral issue of voluntary active euthanasia concerning homicide, challenging the prohibition of “you must not kill”, therefore the condition is thorny in dealing with. In some kind of condition terminally cancerous patients don’t want be kept alive but die, supposed patients voluntarily ask at his free will, then physicians-assisted suicide can be justified? If it can’t be justified, then alleviation medication will be the only access, but if it can compass all the cases where morally only physician-assisted suicide can get rid of?
This thesis explores the morality of terminally cancerous patients’ physician-assisted suicide, giving all the possibilities of good or bad results caused by that, under fully informed consent, to suggest an entry to patients whose sufferings may not be decreased, and give a reference direction to the bioethics community. | en_US |