Bioethics Final

Euthanasia

Killing patients usually painless to benefit them, voluntary or involuntary done by doctor or other 3rd party, killing is done by someone other than the one dying

Arguments for right to die

•autonomy- right to do what we want w/ bodies/lives

-Death as lesser evil- patient has terminal or incurable disease,prevent intense suffering/ pain, death w/ dignity

Pas-physician assisted suicide

Patient self administers lethal meds provided by doctor, patient kills themself

• PAD- physician assisted dying

Umbrella term for PAS & euthanasia

Basic distinctions of rights

• legal vs. moral

• negative vs. positive

• universal vs. special

Legal vs. moral rights

• Legal right entitlement under the law

• Moral right moral entitlement

• May not correspond to each other

Negative vs. positive rights

• Negative rights-right that others not do something

• Positive rights-right requires others perform positive action to fulfill

• Sometimes positive rights enforce negative rights

Universal vs. special rights

• Universal rights for everyone-demand right from everyone

• Special rights for certain ppl- demand right from particular ppl

Rights

• Understood as entitlement--perform or not perform action, to be or not be in certain state or a mixture

Rights & Obligations

• Rights put obligations on ppl

• right to do something, others have obligation to help me get something, or at minimum not prevent me from doing or having something

Universal human right to health

Everyone, everywhere (no matter what society/govt) entitled to highest standard of physical and mental-well being (health)

Special Right to Health

Right for health/ healthcare as citizen of state or member of particular society, fulfillment on govt or other citizens/members of society

Distributive Justice

How society should distribute burdens and if distributive systems just

Utilitarian approach Distributive Justice

• Distribute benefits and burdens to maximize utility

• Some think maximize average utility not overall

Criticism of Utilitarian Approach

• Practical/theoretical concerns calculating utilities w/ different policies

• Could allow oppression or abuse of small amount of society if maximizes utility

Liberal egalitarian approach

• Redistribution to help worse off, prevent major inequality, protect basic liberties

• Society should provide universal access to basic level of healthcare to all members

• Try to eliminate most inequalities—social determinants of health

Criticism of liberal egalitarian approach

• What exactly included in basic level of healthcare

• How much equality overall required

Libertarian Approach

• Emphasize liberty over equality

• Have very strong liberty rights not to be interfered

• Skeptical of positive rights may make ppl do something not want to do involving coercion, violates liberty

Egalitarian health linked to equality of opportunity

Disease and disability prevents fully participating in society—health inequalities undermine fair equality of opportunity

3 different healthcare systems

National health systems, single payer, multi payer

National health system

Govt provides basic health services for free or heavily subsidized

Arguements against right to die

-Arguments against autonomy—suggest we shouldn’t try to prevent perfectly healthy people from killing themselves if they want

• Having right to die may feel like obligation to die, “gift to society”

• Religious arguments: humans have special status & we belong to god and can’t do whatever we want w/ bodies

Single -payer

Govt runs single health-insurer

Multi-payer