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eBook details

• Title: Conflict and Consensus at the End of Life.
• Author : The Hastings Center Report
• Release Date : January 01, 2005
• Genre: Life Sciences,Books,Science & Nature,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 165 KB

Description

It is hard to die in America. A process that should shield patients as they disengage from life instead leads with increasing frequency to conflict and media attention and provides an opportunity for third parties with political or self-serving agendas to feather their particular ideological and personal nests. For a few years after Quinlan (and before Wendland, Baby K, and Schiavo), it seemed as if a tentative consensus had been reached that death is not always the worst outcome. Families received support in their attempts to avoid a protracted dying for loved ones. Ethically and legally cognizable elements in end of life decisions included: the agreement of physicians about the prognosis of unlikely recovery; prior wishes of the patient related to medical treatment and quality of life; and matters of suffering. Clearly some patients and family wanted "everything done to maintain life," but if pain control were assured, many chose less invasive, more comforting interventions. But consensus is hard to achieve, and even harder to maintain, in a dichotomized society. Recent developments illustrate the truth of this proposition. The medical-ethical climate is clearly changing and, in prominent cases, families are now demanding continued support for patients long after the patient has lost relational ability and conscious appreciation of surroundings. Moreover, these sorts of decisions appear to be part of a new political and moral agenda that sees the "right to life" as applying both to the beginning and to the end of existence. Rather than reaching a more finely honed consensus about the values and practices that undergird end of life care, conflict has come to dominate the discussion. The consequences are serious for patients, health care providers, family members, and society. Moreover, the economic costs of these ethical challenges will have a serious effect on allocation of resources in a population with an ever-increasing number of persons who are not medically insured.

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