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Sociological analyses of suicide
The morality of suicide
Ethical dilemmas in assisted suicide
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I believe you bring up an excellent and important point in regards to this case; how parents must feel dealing with the terminal illness and death of their child. I think that consideration is what makes understanding Robert Latimer difficult . It brings up a lot of emotion and for good reason. I understand why it invokes oppostion, but I feel assumptions are made about him that aren't fair. We don't know if he feels guilt or was relieved to have her gone. From what he says, he feels confident about his decision. So to evaulate from a Utilitarian perspective, he is certain he choose the scenario which caused his daughter less unhappiness and suffering. For me where this story is complicated, is that he didn't consider the societal perspective.
He admits he was only thinking of her. In my opinion from a societal Utilitarian perspective, taking another's life as a "mercy killing" when they aren't able to consent has a lot of serious implications and needs to discussed in great detail and regulated before it should be legal. I agree with him spending time in prison, but I sympathize with his personal decision. I I looked up an interview with him in 2011 from CTV News: http://www.ctvnews.ca/latimer-no-regrets-about-killing-disabled-daughter-1.615463
The case had a many important questions to it. In one question: is physician-assisted suicide morally, ethically, legally correct, and/or fair to anyone?
string. We ended up going to the air port where my mom sent me too India.
Barbra Huttmann’s purpose in writing her story in A Crime of Compassion is to convince people that no matter their beliefs, it is sometimes more humane to let someone die if they are suffering. This was the case with a cancer patient of hers named Mac. She communicates this directly by saying, “Until there is legislation making it a criminal act to code a patient has requested the right to die, we will all of us risk of the same face as Mac” (Huttmann 422).
The mother-son case illustrates that there are more factors in play than just the two that Thomson presents in her thesis. Thomson’s conditions by themselves cannot explain every situation. The relationship between the people involved can also affect whether a decision is morally permissible or not. If that relationship entails that one person is emotionally bound and ethically responsible for the security and well-being of the other, the first cannot knowingly contribute to the death of the second. Thomson’s thesis must be modified to include this condition as well.
On October 24th 1993 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Robert Latimer was convicted of second degree murder for the intentional killing of his 12 year-old daughter, Tracy Latimer, who suffered a severe form of cerebral palsy since she was born. Tracy endured seizures five to six times a day, could not take pain medication because it would interfere with her epilepsy medication, and underwent painful surgeries throughout her life to stabilize her body weight and correct spinal abnormalities. Just weeks before her death, her doctors planned to surgically remove her hipbone, which had become dysfunctional as a result of a previous surgery and spinal complication, and would have taken at least a year of recovery and been extremely painful. Her father,
The love that a parent feels for a child is the most indescribable feeling in the world. Most parents would do anything and everything to protect their children, but not all parents are aware of the danger their child faces. In the short story "Killings," by Andre Dubus, a mother and father are faced with the tragic death of their son. Both parents, although both may not admit to it, believe that the murderer deserves the same consequences their son suffered. Matthew Fowler takes matters into his own hands, and along with his friend, Willis Trottier, kills Richard Strout. The death of Richard Strout should not be tried as a murder, but as a justifiable homicide. Matthew Fowler, the father of Frank Fowler, had every reason to reciprocate Strout's actions. A child should not be taken from a parent in the way that Frank was taken from his.
On April 15, 1975, the Quinlan family received a tragic phone call at approximately 2am; their daughter, Karen Ann, was in a coma. Earlier that evening, Quinlan was at a party and consumed drugs and alcohol. She became unconscious and eventually fell into an irreversible coma. She was conditioned to be in a persistent vegetative state. Since she was unable to recover from her coma, Quinlan’s parents requested her life support to be withheld. The removal of life support was more complicated than what the Quinlan family imagined it to be. They had to take the case to court to have the request approved. The first round in Superior court, the Quinlans lost. Eventually, the family took the case to the New Jersey Supreme Court. The court ruled that Quinlan’s father is appointed as her guardian and can make any decision regarding her care. It took the family over a year to have the approval to remove their daughter from life support; it took five days for Karen Ann Quinlan to be weaned off her respirator. Miraculously, she was able to breathe on her own for the next nine years until she died of pneumonia. This case led to the creation of the “living will” and required medical institutions to allow patients to live their last stage in life with dignity and respect (Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice
This case comes down to: Does the written living will or the proxy named in the living will have the louder voice in end-of-life care discussions? In this case, the voice of the proxy won. In the best cases, such decisions should be made together at the time of the creation of the living will with both the patient and the proxy. If this occurred, the son would be more on the same page with the concerns for his mother’s end of life care. Another way of solving the issue of the possibility of the woman’s life changing over the past seven years, would be having a way for the woman to acknowledge that thoughts are still the same by updating/resigning the living will
As a result, when she was told, Mrs. Roth said, “We cannot let it live, for her sake and ours.” On the day she left the hospital with the child, Mrs. Roth mixed a lethal dose of a tranquilizing drug with the baby’s formula and fed it to her. The child died that evening. Mrs. Roth and her husband were charged with infanticide. During Court Mrs. Roth admitted to the killing but said she had done the right thing. “I know I could not let my baby live like that,” she said. “If only she had been mentally abnormal, she would not have known her fate. But she had a normal brain. She would have known. Placing her in an institution might have helped me, but it wouldn’t have helped her.” The jury, found Mrs. Roth and her husband guilty of the charge.
Her psychological damage done from the mistreatment by her mother and having a baby non-consensually should be taken into consideration. None of these make murder okay; However she was clearly immature and scared at the time. It was a mistake that she made when she was very young. If she had remained in jail for 50 years, she would be a senior citizen when released. She would miss the majority of her life and her youth to pursuit major accomplishments and redeem herself. Taking away one’s the opportunity to contribute to the world or pursue their goals would almost be taking away his/her life. Our society should promote the value of life and its potential. Originally, I did not think of the sentence in that way, but the class discussion invoked thought. Recently turning 18 years old, I slowly fathomed the magnitude of a near life sentence for a crime committed as a teenager. Why should one’s opportunity be taken away if he/she has the desire and potential to redeem himself/herself? I came to the conclusion that her redemption attempt deserved a shot. All people, especially young ones, deserve a second chance and allowing her to pursue her degree gave her
This is a fascinating case because it presents the distinction between a patient’s right to refuse treatment and a physician’s assistance with suicide. Legally, Diane possessed the right to refuse treatment, but she would have faced a debilitating, painful death, so the issue of treatment would be a moot point. It would be moot in the sense that Diane seemed to refuse treatment because the odds were low, even if she survived she would spend significant periods of time in the hospital and in pain, and if she didn’t survive she would spend her last days in the hospital. If Diane were to merely refuse treatment and nothing else (as the law prescribes) than she would not have been able to avoid the death which she so dearly wanted to avoid.
The ethical issues in this case are who’s responsible for making the health care decisions for Mr. Woods a patient that would never regain consciousness and will die in about 2 to 10 years while on the ventilator after having a heart attack. It seems as if Mr. Woods never completed a living will, so the Kentucky Supreme Court appointed a guardian. According to the book, this is allowed by the Living Will Directive Act which allows a judicially appointed guardian or surrogate to remove life support. To my understanding, the hospital ethics committee recommended that Mr. Woods be removed for life support, and the guardian asked for approval. Ethics committee should serve as a legal guardian when there is no guardian appointed, and the family
It is important to interpret the situations leading up to an outcome, as it allows for a better understanding of what has occurred and why it has occurred. “On October 24th, 1993, Tracy Latimer was found dead. She had died [under the care of her father]. Mr. Latimer confessed to the crime and admitted that he had killed Tracy, [by placing her in his truck and connection a hose from the truck’s exhaust pipe to the cab]” (Wikipedia, para 4). Tracy passed away from high amount of carbon monoxide. Mr. Latimer was “found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 10 years” (Wikipedia, para 4). It is important to note that Mr. Latimer did not commit this crime out of senselessness but because he wanted to place Tracy out of her misery. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a famous French philosopher, based a handful of his theoretical perspectives on the Spirit of the Law. He believed that people deserved freedom. Laws are vague and rely on the interpretation of individuals. It is evident that the sentence given to Mr. Latimer was not interpreted through the eyes of a father but a criminal. Although he did break...
Latimer did was morally wrong. But, when an individual is so severely disable with a poor quality of life and suffers from ongoing pain, one can then justify that it is morally right to assist with mercy killing. The morally wrong about this case was that Tracy did not have a choice in whether she wanted to live or die. It was all decided by her father that taking her life was the best solution for her. In other words, Mr. Latimer decided that Tracy would be better off dead instead of having another surgery. If the Supreme Court did not overturn Mr. Latimer conviction to second degree murder it would have set a bad precedent for people with disabilities. I agreed with The Council of Canadians with Disabilities that giving any lesser penalty will put thousands of people with disabilities in more danger of violence and death. Failure to be responsible for such crime against people with disabilities would be the wickedest form of discrimination. Tracy was placed on this earth for a purpose which we may not understand, but no one knew exactly what her wishes would have
Depression is a hard disease to battle but yet, she had not tried all the medical options before opting for euthanasia in the end. The fact that physicians such as Wel Distelman got awards for being pro-euthanasia is still mind boggling. More resources should be allocated towards solving mental health issues and perhaps finding cures for diseases such as depression and dementia that may lead to the rebuilding of our society. Despite Tom 's suicidal thoughts in his early life, he found something to live for, and this shows that depression can be overcome. Perhaps if his mother had tried to reconcile with him and his sister before she died, maybe she would have changed her mind and had a reason to live, we will ever know. Euthanasia is still a topic that warrants a lot of debates, those for it and those against