A dignified end-of-life option is humane, ethical
As a critical care physician with almost four decades experience and witness to the death of thousands, I am saddened by obstruction of the Maryland End-of-Life Options Act. At the recent Senate public hearing, I was dismayed to hear discussions injected with religious beliefs and archaic interpretations of the Hippocratic Oath.
Evolution of the physician-patient relationship, medical science and bioethics render the original Hippocratic Oath obsolete. Respect for autonomy and social justice are not considered in the antiquated oath. Physicians now recite personalized oaths, the Declaration of Geneva or modernized variants of the original oath.
Most modern oaths do not prohibit euthanasia. A popular revision of the Hippocratic Oath, authored in 1964 by Dr. Louis Lasagna, addresses physician-assisted death, “If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.”
Modern medicine has evolved in incredible ways to cure and curtail disease, but increased longevity must not come at the cost of decreased quality of life and prolonged suffering. Unfortunately modern palliative care isn’t always successful in making all suffering tolerable. Physician assistance for patients desiring a dignified end of life option is not only humane, it is also ethical.
A family once admonished me and tried to prevent the administration of morphine to a dying patient. Their faith taught that to enter Heaven, their loved one had to relive the suffering of Christ on the Cross. I was unnerved to hear similar comments and reflections on how to be purged of the Original Sin in the Maryland State Senate building.
I encourage legislators and fellow citizens to practice religion, and live and die as they see fit. Please afford others the same dignity and respect. right, and a constitutionally protected right at that. I challenge Stark to find where education is mentioned in the Constitution. And truly, is education a right?
No one has a right to an education, as much as he has a right to a television or an automobile. One person’s right cannot negate the right of another, therefore you cannot force someone to provide an education for another and taxing someone to provide that education violates his rights.
— Bart Frazier, Annapolis