Rachels vs Steinbock on Euthanasia Essay Example

time of the patient’s pain and suffering. If you let the person die, he may suffer for a few days, but if you administer lethal injection on that patient, he will only experience the pain for a few minutes. Bonnie Steinbock challenges Rachels interpretation of the AMA statement.

Steinbock says that AMA , in providing that statement, thoroughly rejects all forms of euthanasia.There’s no exception to that. However, when the patient has given their consent to the withholding of a treatment, then that is already a different situation. It is not anymore considered euthanasia. Steinbock argues that not all the time when a treatment is withhold, the intention is to terminate the patient’s life.

There are some cases when the administration of the treatment itself causes more pain than the ailment. Steinbock provided an example wherein cancer treatment produces more suffering than the cancer itself.Thus, the main purpose of withholding the treatment is to alleviate the person’s suffering temporarily, without the intention of killing him. That situation of refusing to provide life-prolonging treatment does not anymore fall under the definition or category of euthanasia, since it does not necessarily equate to letting the patient die.

Steinbock does not differentiate active and passive euthanasia. Instead, he maintains the distinction of ordinary from extraordinary treatment. Ordinary treatments are the medical means a doctor is normally expected to provide to his patient.Extraordinary treatments are those painful treatments but with very little chance of success.

It is a requirement to provide patients with ordinary care, failing to do so is neglect of responsibility or homicide. If a patient has requested not to receive these extraordinary treatments, the doctors are

left with no option but to follow. Not providing extraordinary treatment is not punishable. Rachels’ and Steinbock’s interpretations are well founded upon, and thus have their own strong points.

I don’t think I am in the best position to tell who have the most accurate interpretation of AMA’s statement.Only AMA can tell what they exactly mean by their statement. I feel that AMA’s statement has been vaguely written. They were not able to provide exact and specific definitions of the words they used. I couldn’t blame Rachels and Steinbock for arriving at very different interpretations of AMA’s statement.

But if I need to give out my personal opinion on this subject, I’d go with Steinbock’s interpretation. I don’t think AMA would want their statement interpreted like what Rachels did. Because if that’s the case, then the two sentences in the above statement are obviously not consistent.The first statement says they don’t approve of any forms of mercy killing as they are contrary to what the principles of their medical profession says. But the second statement directly contradicts the first by saying that the decision lies with the patient or his immediate family. The only time both statements would become consistent is if that decision to die referred in the second statement does not fall into the same category as euthanasia, just like what Steinbock interprets.

I know, it’s rather more of a play with words.