Loading...
Is it Morally Right for Physicians to Kill Patients that Good May Come?
Potts, Michael Byrne, Paul A.
Potts, Michael
Byrne, Paul A.
Author(s)
Contributor(s)
GE Subjects
Collections
Files
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Online Access
Abstract
Robert Truog and Franklin Miller have recently argued against the dead donor rule in organ transplantation. We question their position that it is morally right for doctors to kill their patients when the patients would be allowed to die anyway and when such killing would yield benefits to others. Assuming, for the sake of argument, Truog and Miller’s position that both brain dead organ donors and donors by cardiac death are alive before organ removal, we argue that physicians are not morally justified in such killing. Medicine’s fundamental end involves a healing relationship between a vulnerable patient and a physician with both the knowledge and power to help that patient. Killing a patient violates the nature of this healing relationship and is neither justified through utilitarian considerations nor through informed consent. Thus killing patients for their organs is morally wrong and inimical to the proper practice of medicine.
Note(s)
Topic
Type
Article
Date
2009
Identifier
ISBN
DOI
Copyright/License
With permission of the license/copyright holder