The Supreme Courts decisions on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying patients of pain and suffering.
Although it ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Court in effect supported the medical principle of double effect, a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects - a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is foreseen - is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect.
Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients pain, even though increasing dosages will eventually kill the patient.
Nancy Dubler, director of Montefiore Medical Center, contends that the principle will shield doctors who until now have very, very strongly insisted that they could not give patients sufficient mediation to control their pain if that might hasten death.
George Annas, chair of the health law department at Boston University, maintains that, as long as a doctor prescribes a drug for a legitimate medical purpose, the doctor has done nothing illegal even if the patient uses the drug to hasten death. Its like surgery, he says. We dont call those deaths homicides because the doctors didnt intend to kill their patients, although they risked their death. If youre a physician, you can risk your patients suicide as long as you dont intend their suicide.
On another level, many in the medical community acknowledge that the assisted-suicide debate has been fueled in part by the despair of patients for whom modern medicine has prolonged the physical agony of dying.
Just three weeks before the Courts ruling on physician-assisted suicide, the National Academy of Science released a two-volume report, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life. It identifies the undertreatment of pain and the aggressive use of ineffectual and forced medical procedures that may prolong and even dishonor the period of dying as the twin problems of end-of-life care.
The profession is taking steps to require young doctors to train in hospices, to test knowledge of aggressive pain management therapies, to develop a Medicare billing code for hospital-based care, and to develop new standards for assessing and treating pain at the end of life.
Annas says lawyers can play a key role in insisting that these well-meaning medical initiatives translate into better care. Large numbers of physicians seem unconcerned with the pain their patients are needlessly and predictably suffering, to the extent that it constitutes systematic patient abuse. He says medical licensing boards must make it clear... that painful deaths are presumptively ones that are incompetently managed and should result in license suspension.
From the first three paragraphs, we learn that ________.
[A] doctors used to increase drug dosages to control their patients pain
[B] it is still illegal for doctors to help the dying end their lives
[C] the Supreme Court strongly opposes physician-assisted suicide
[D] patients have no constitutional right to commit suicide
Which of the following statements is true according to the text?
[A] Doctors will be held guilty if they risk their patients death.
[B] Modern medicine has assisted terminally ill patients in painless recovery.
[C] The Court ruled that high-dosage pain-relieving medication can be prescribed.
[D] A doctors medication is no longer justified by his intentions.
According to the NASs report, one of the problems in end-of-life care is ________.
[A] prolonged medical procedures
[B] inadequate treatment of pain
[C] systematic drug abuse
[D] insufficient hospital care
Which of the following best defines the word aggressive ?
[A] Bold.
[B] Harmful.
[C] Careless.
[D] Desperate.
George Annas would probably agree that doctors should be punished if they ________.
[A] manage their patients incompetently
[B] give patients more medicine than needed
[C] reduce drug dosages for their patients
[D] prolong the needless suffering of the patients
精选英语美文阅读:A Friend's Prayer 朋友的祈祷
精选英语散文欣赏:微笑挽救生命
精选英语美文阅读:How selfless real love is 无私的爱
精美散文:27岁的人生
双语美文:What are you still waiting for?
浪漫英文情书精选:True Love Of My Life我的真爱
美文阅读:青春物语
生命可以是一座玫瑰花园
英语美文:Keep on Singing
浪漫英文情书精选:Need You With Me需要你爱我
精选英语美文阅读:爱的奇迹 Keep on Singing
精选英语美文阅读:饶孟侃《呼唤》
英文《小王子》温情语录
浪漫英文情书精选:Could This Be Real?这是真的吗?
双语散文: Optimism and Pessimistic
态度决定一切 Attitude Is Everything
精选英语美文阅读:无雨的梅雨天 (双语)
精选英语美文阅读:你见或者不见我(中英对照)
最美的英文情诗:请允许我成为你的夏季
精美散文:守护自己的天使
浪漫英文情书精选:Don't Give Up不要放弃
精选英语散文欣赏:一棵小苹果树
精选英语美文阅读:假如生活欺骗了你
美文:爱的奇迹
伤感美文:人生若只如初见
英语美文欣赏:A beautiful song
精选英语美文阅读:被忽略的爱 Helpless love
精选英语美文阅读:哪有一株忘忧草? (双语)
精美散文:爱你所做 做你所爱
精选英语散文欣赏:平等的爱
不限 |
英语教案 |
英语课件 |
英语试题 |
不限 |
不限 |
上册 |
下册 |
不限 |