Argumentative Essay: The Value Of Autonomy

Autonomy is independence or freedom, as of the will or one's actions (dictionary.com). Medical practices should be based on autonomy, beneficence, and justice. There are many arguments based on autonomy that favor against, favoring the aspects around the patient rather than the patient’s will. If a patient is in the final stages of an incurable disease, then respecting their autonomy at that point as an efficient value is more valuable than denying them in order to serve better interests in the remainder of their life, denying the only meaningful choice one would have left to make. Firstly, some argue that the decision to die is a social decision, and that it affects the healthcare team around them and undermines their autonomy. A person’s own life is independent from the government and medical staff in

In Kantian ethics as well, euthanasia can be expressed positively. While we cannot justifiably trade an absolute value against interest-relative goods such as pain relief, since this would mean our prioritizing what is valuable to us over the value we carry in ourselves, making it non-universalizable violating the categorical imperative, “Act only in accordance with the maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” (Sjöstrand, 2013). That said, if one applies another value such as dignity or autonomy, and in using the means of suicide, protects the deterioration of these that would offend those very values themselves, the practice becomes pursuit of an absolute and universal value that is congruent with the categorical imperative ” (Sjöstrand,