The Man With Stars Inside
Creator
Coulehan, Jack
Bibliographic Citation
Annals of Internal Medicine. 1997 May 15; 126(10): 799-802.
Abstract
Public opinion polls show that a large percentage of persons in the United States currently favor the legalization of professionally assisted death. This support reflects widespread fear and confusion over the tortuously prolonged and painful process of dying countenanced by contemporary medicine. Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia are complex moral issues. The current drive to translate them into debates about "rights" and public policy is curious: Does the energy directed toward "palliation-by-death" mean that our society is more compassionate now, or more just, than in the past? To the contrary, I believe that the movement toward assisted death reflects inadequate palliative care, poor patient-physician communication, great confusion about the right to refuse treatment, and profound inequity in U.S. health care. Legalization of assisted death diverts us from addressing these problems. Palliation-by-death will drive us farther apart, not closer together.
Date
1997-05-15Subject
Active Euthanasia; Aged; Allowing to Die; Assisted Suicide; Biomedical Technologies; Case Studies; Communication; Compassion; Death; Double Effect; Drugs; Euthanasia; Health; Health Care; Legal Aspects; Literature; Medicine; Pain; Palliative Care; Physician Patient Relationship; Physicians; Public Opinion; Public Policy; Quality of Health Care; Rights; Suffering; Suicide; Terminal Care; Terminally Ill; Treatment Refusal; Trends; Vulnerable Populations;
Collections
Metadata
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The Man With Stars Inside
Koval, Joseph C.; Rousseau, Paul; Coulehan, Jack (1997-12-15)