Tuesdays With Morrie Essay, Research Paper
The Fourteenth Amendment in the Constitution provinces: No province shall strip any individual of life, autonomy, or belongings, without due procedure of jurisprudence. One specific instance shows the utmost argument over this Amendment and the infinite ethical inquiries that arise from this Amendment. On January 11, 1983 Nancy Cruzan was in a serious auto accident and was found face down on the land. She had suffered important O want, which badly damaged her encephalon. Brain harm of this badness is irreversible. This left her life in a relentless vegetive status in a Missouri province infirmary. This status allows a individual to demo motor physiological reactions but evinces no indicants of other important cognitive map ( Supreme Court Collection. ) Mr. And Mrs. Lester Cruzan so made the hard determination to cut off the unreal nutrition and hydration of their girl Nancy, and let her decease to happen. Both the infirmary and the province refused, utilizing the Fourteenth Amendment as the ground for the determination along w/ assisted suicide policies. So the inquiry presented now is: Do infirmaries or medical individuals have the
authorization to interrupt the constitutional “right to populate” without the patient’s
consent?
Two replies can be provided for this inquiry. One being that the infirmary and medical individuals could hold authorization to interrupt the constitutional right to populate without the patient s consent. And the 2nd being that the infirmary and medical individuals could non hold the authorization to interrupt the same right to populate without the patient s consent. Both replies will be researched and explored and applied to the reading of From Cruelty to Goodness by Phillip Hallie. Before these two replies are analyzed, the message of Phillip Hallie s essay will be defined and explained.
In the essay From Cruelty to Goodness, writer Phillip Hallie discusses the positive and negative moralss of goodness. To follow the negative moral principle is to be nice, to hold clean custodies. But to follow the positive moral principle, to be one s brother s keeper, is to be more than decent-is to be active, even aggressive ( Hallie 59 ) . He describes that the negative moral principle is to forbear from certain actions and the positive moral principle is to travel above and beyond in other actions. The constitutional right to populate and whether medical individuals should interrupt this right without the patient s consent can be looked at in both the positive and negative moralss of goodness.
In the instance of Nancy Cruzan, the province denied her parents the right to stop their girl s unreal nutrition and hydration with the logical thinking that it would go against the fundamental law. The struggle of aided self-destruction policies besides arose and added to the province s determination to non let the Cruzan s to end their girl s life. The province, in declining to let the hospital terminal all line of lifes to Nancy, was moving as the negative moral principle of goodness. The province and the infirmary merely wanted to maintain Nancy alive so that they were staying by the fundamental law, non because they were concerned with the well being of the adult female. The province argued that Nancy did non give any grounds that she did non desire to populate life as a vegetable and did non turn out that she wished for the backdown of medical intervention or of hydration and nutrition ( Supreme Court Collection. ) Using this, the province claimed that taking off all medical aid would be go againsting her constitutional right to populate. The tribunals and the infirmaries were merely demoing nice custodies that are associated with the negative moral principle of goodness.
This shows that infirmaries and medical individuals do non hold the authorization to interrupt the constitutional right to populate without the patient s consent with merely staying by the negative moralss of goodness. The infirmaries had to obey the Torahs of the fundamental law and hence could non end the medical interventions being used to maintain Nancy Cruzan alive. The province was making merely what was necessary in order to follow the jurisprudence. The negative moralss forbid them to make what is in the patient s best involvement. If the infirmary would desire to merely be in conformity with the negative side of goodness, so merely following the jurisprudence would carry through that. Following the jurisprudence is adequate to be good and to be have nice custodies but it is non adequate to be one s brother s keeper or have strenuous aristocracy ( Hallie 59 ) . The jurisprudence hopes to supply for the best in all state of affairss so that all parties are satisfied. The province of Missouri, in this instance, relies on its involvement in the protection and saving of human life, and there can be no gainsaying in this involvement.we do non believe a State is required to stay impersonal in the face of an informed and voluntary determination by a physically-able grownup to hunger to decease ( Excerpts from the Supreme Court Decision. ) The thought of the constitutional jurisprudence is to profit everyone but in add-on, to besides ignore the positive moral principle of goodness.
The 2nd reply the inquiries proposed could be the undermentioned: The infirmaries and medical individuals do hold the authorization to interrupt the constitutional right to populate and hence following the positive moralss of goodness. Th
is does non go on really frequently due to the fact that the jurisprudence normally overrides the desires of the people. The physicians or doctors could halt medical interventions to those who are in utmost hurting and agony with the ground being to stop all agony that may be intolerable ( Life News ) . Although the patient may non be able to do the determination on his/her ain, he/she might hold close relations that would cognize best what the patient would desire. In the instance of Nancy Cruzan, unwritten statements had been made to relations and friends prior to the accident demonstrated that she did non desire to be kept alive unless she could hold a halfway normal life ( Excerpts from the Supreme Court Decision ) . This could hold been grounds adequate that Nancy did non desire to go on life in the province that she was in.
If the doctor can find that a peculiar program of attention for the patient, including the usage of peculiar intervention, is clearly most in agreement with the patient s values and if the patient s household and direct health professionals are in understanding, so that peculiar program of attention should be pursued. This would be the merchandise of the positive moralss of goodness. In this manner, the doctors and infirmaries are traveling out of their manner to guarantee the best involvement of the patient. The emotional facet of goodness so comes into the image and the jurisprudence is seen as something less. Taking clip out to discourse the class of action for a patient with his/her household would incorporate a certain type of aristocracy as the positive moralss of goodness call for. The doctor in audience with the household, if available, and other direct health professionals, should place the program of attention that would most by and large be thought to progress most such patients involvements and if household and direct health professionals concur, it should be implemented ( Part II: DECSIONS INVOLVING PATIENTS ) . Traveling beyond the call of the jurisprudence, the infirmaries and medical individuals display the best instance of the positive moral principle of goodness. Leting infirmaries and medical individuals to hold the authorization to interrupt the constitutional right to populate is in all conformity with positive moralss of goodness.
The reply I present to this inquiry is one of assorted sentiments. I believe that the jurisprudence does do a valid point in doing it clear that they understand that the fundamental law states that no human shall be deprived of life. However, in certain fortunes this can be overridden and other options can be made in the patient s best involvement. In the instance of Nancy Cruzan, I believe that when her parents wanted the expiration of her nutrition and hydration, they were making what they believed was best for their girl. They were no uncertainty good parents, but someplace the line had to be drawn in mention to why Nancy was being unbroken alive. She had no marks of bettering and hence her being was clearly all mechanical and electronic. I believe that her parents knew that if the infirmary terminated her medical intervention that it was non patient assisted self-destruction. If it is in the patient s best involvement to hold all medical terminated, so it should be done, and so the positive moralss of goodness are shown because the medical individuals are traveling beyond merely what the jurisprudence says. The jurisprudence is merely at that place to hold set guidelines to maintain society in order. It merely provides for the negative moralss of goodness. I believe that in instances where the patient is unable to make up one’s mind for his/her ego, that the class of action taken should be decided between the physician and household if available. This would turn out to be the highest signifier of the positive moralss of goodness and the jurisprudence would be overruling the negative moralss of goodness.
In the argument over the constitutional right to populate, we chiefly see that the negative moralss of goodness are utilized. In the instance of Nancy Cruzan, for the longest clip, the province overruled everything and Nancy was non allowed to hold her life terminated. The province so merely provides for the negative moralss of goodness because it is in conformity with the Fourteenth Amendment. The positive moralss of goodness are non touched upon when goodness involves the jurisprudence. By holding her parents battle for the right to stop Nancy s life, and holding the jurisprudence eventually give them that right, the positive moralss of goodness were eventually demonstrated. This instance and Hallie s thoughts show us that we need to travel above and beyond the call of responsibility to follow both moralss of goodness even if that means a battle for what is missing.
Plants Cited
Hallie, Phillip From Cruelty to Goodness Schmersahl and Stay. 59.
Excerpts from the Supreme Court Decision in CRUZAN BY CRUZAN v. DIRECTOR, MISSOURI. 13 Feb 2001. hypertext transfer protocol: //www.cortland.edu/www/polsci/cruzan.html
Life News ( a publication of WELS Lutherans for Life ) 1991. hypertext transfer protocol: //www.publicagenda.org/issues/overview.cfm? issue_type=right2die
Supreme Court Collection: Cruzan v. Director, DMH 497 U.S. 261 ( 1990 ) . hypertext transfer protocol: //supct.law.cornell.edu/sucpt/html/88-1503.ZS.html
Part II: DECSIONS INVOLVING PATIENTS WHO HAVE LOST THE CAPACITY TO MAKE DECISIONS AND WHO HAVE NOT EXECUTED AND ADVANCE DIRECTIVE. hypertext transfer protocol: //www.ualberta.cal ethics/bb5-1.html # lost
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