Janet Adkins Euthanasia Case Study

Janet Adkins, a fifty-four years old, who was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s besides her ability to enjoy a full schedule of activities with her husband, had reached a decision that she wanted to end her life rather than lose her cognitive capacities. Adkins communicated with Kevorkian who invented a death machine. When they met in the park, he inserted a tube in her arm and started a saline flow. This machine had a button that if Adkins were to press, the drug would inject into her body which would cause her death. And she did press it! According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of euthanasia is the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for
This rule incorporates a distinction between foreseen effects and intended effects. One example of the use of RDE, a patient has terrible pain and suffering who asks his physician to end his life. If the physician ends the patient’s life to end his pain and suffering, the physician in this case intentionally causes the patient to die and his action is morally wrong. While if the physician gives the patient a medication to relieve his pain, the patient would die from the risk of the medication. But if the physician intended to give medication to relieve the patient’s pain and suffering without intended to cause death. In this case, according to RDE the act of indirectly hastening death is not wrong. The classical formulation of RDE identify the four conditions of morally permissible action. These four conditions are; the nature of the act (the act must be good), the agent’s intention (the agent intends only the good thing not the bad thing), the distinction between means and effect (the bad thing must not be a means to the good effect) and proportionally between the good effect and the bad effect. One case, a pregnant woman has a cervical cancer and she needs a hysterectomy to save her life, but the surgery will result of the death of the fetus. In this case, according to Beauchamp and Childress, the physician will decide to
The killing and letting die distinction has also affected the distinctions between suicide and forgoing treatment and between homicide and natural death (B & C 174). In one case, a congenital condition that connects the trachea to the esophagus i.e. tracheoesophageal fistula that occurs in infants with Down Syndrome. The parents and the physicians decided to let the baby die not to perform the operation. In this case, the public erupted over the case and the critics charged that the parents and the physicians had killed the child by allowing him to