Ethical Issues In The Family Stone

In the film, The Family Stone, many palliative concepts were addressed within the character’s interactions. The film is about a family’s Christmas gathering, where the entire family reunites and brings along their significant others. As the family arrives, they discuss their son/brother’s girlfriend, Meredith. As the family proceeds with their Christmas celebration, each family member has their own suspicion regarding their mother’s state of health. As the film unravels, the audience discovers that the matriarch of the family, Sybil, has fallen sick again. It is initially discussed between one son and his father. The son inquires about his mother’s health and asks how bad it is this time, implying that she has been sick before. His father reveals that it is worse this time. However, she had hoped to

In module four, it is made evident that “any medical treatment that is not essential to the comfort of the dying patient may be withheld or withdrawn” (ELNEC, 2014). In Sybil’s case, her cancer was recurring, meaning she had already received care for her breast cancer. She was in remission. Since her husband stated that her cancer was “not looking good,” we can infer that it has now metastasized. This means that her cancer has returned and now spread. At this point, her chance of re-entering into remission is not likely. Thus, we as the audience understand that she has accepted her mortality and any further chemotherapy or treatment would be considered medically futile. As mentioned prior, the mortality of her breast cancer recurrence was accepted and they were no longer doing anything to treat it. If Sybil and her family had attempted at an aggressive treatment plan for this recurrence, it would be very unlikely that she would have a good outcome. Thus, any possible treatment for her cancer would only promote suffering and not