Having watched the two videos and thought about some of the arguments, you should be in a place where you can give a reasoned response to the question posed by the cases of Tony Nicklinson and Diane Pretty.
Guardian on law change in Scotland
BBC on A campaign to legalise assisted suicide in Scotland.
The true story of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffers a stroke and has to live with an almost totally paralyzed body; only his left eye isn’t paralyzed. (IMDB)
For those of you all who have prelims coming up and are starting to notice that there is a lot of jargon in the medical ethics section. Quite often there are questions that require you to understand one of these terms (or more). If you don’t know what they mean, you’ll really struggle – so flashcards are the order of the day….
Euthanasia – a person kills another or allows her to die for her own benefit
Active Euthanasia – a person does something that intentionally results in the others death
Passive Euthanasia – a person allows the other to die, even though keeping them alive is a possibility that is open. this usually involve withholding a treatment or food.
Voluntary Euthanasia – euthanasia where the person dying is able to, and does, express his wish to die
Non-voluntary Euthanasia – euthanasia where the patient is not able to express a preference (even if it may seem fairly obvious)
Involuntary Euthanasia – the death of the person is against their compentent wishes, this is usually where people mention the Nazis’ use of the word ‘euthanasia’. There are, however, cases where it is arguable that euthanasia against the person’s wishes, may be in their best interest. We usually use ‘Involuntary Euthanasia’ in this sense.
Suicide – someone intentionally kills themselves
Assisted Suicide – one person helps another to kill themselves (when they wish it)
Physician Assisted Suicide -as above, where the agent is a doctor.
The idea to write these down in one place came from ‘The Very Short Introduction to Medical Ethics’. It has a really good chapter on Euthanasia that should be useful for revision… It could have been written for Higher/Int 2 RMPS.
To post your opinion on the view you signed up for in class just press comment below. Usual options (initials) apply and make sure you make your answer balanced and clear. We can all use each others answers for revising for the NAB… If you want to see a bigger version of the slide above just click on it… [Make sure you submit your answer to the correct post]
Your Choices:
If you’ve ever wondered the sorts of things that make for perfect AE questions, use this to revise for the exams…
Here are the handouts you all produced for the class, just in case you lose them. Very well done. Still waiting on one.