Journal 3

Alex Marr

Journal 3

The next article I read during my research was Suicidality, Refractory Suffering, and the Right to Choose Death, a scholarly journal found in the American Journal of Bioethics.  This article focuses on the analysis of the ethical procedure and scenarios for people on life support.  The author of the article argues that the patient should not be able to make his or her own decision to withdraw life support, since the patient will not have the mental capacity to make a good decision.  The article then goes on to point out specific exceptions, however, such as proper informed consent by a mentally stable person beforehand.  Lastly, the article ends up talking about how life support can be considered a type of suicide when faced with a patient who has feelings of hopelessness and distress with an incurable disease.

This article was definitely more opinionated than my previous two articles, which is more of where I want to strive to be during my research.  While the previous two articles said it was ok for the patient to make the decision to withdraw life support, the author of this article argued strongly against it, believing that the patient cannot make the decision unless he or she has written an informed consent when they are in the right state of mind beforehand.  This article is very particular of its view of life support as a whole as well.  While the other two articles believed that life support was ok to use and then withdraw, this article is highly against continuing someone’s existence and believes patients should “refuse treatments and express a desire to die” (Rich).

After reading this article, I definitely feel more comfortable comparing the different views of life support and the decision that happens to withdraw it.  With this article, I learned the other side to the issue, where one believes the patient has no right to make the decision unless it is specifically written down while the patient is in a healthy mental state, stating that not everyone should have the right to choose death.  The article also brings up a good point by talking about mentally ill, specifically those who are depressed and may want to try to end their own lives through life support.  Through this article, I am now able to clearly synthesize ideas from the other articles.  However, unlike the other articles, this article did not mention anything about the family’s role in the whole process, which left me thinking about whether this author would agree or disagree with the other two articles.  Personally, I believe he would disagree and think the family would not have right or rationality to make the decision.

This article definitely brought up new ideas that I haven’t thought about.  Mentally ill people can be seen in a different light, since not all of them may want to be kept alive in the first place.  Many depressed people want to commit suicide and withdrawing life support could be an easy way for them to go.  However, the question that still remains is how would they get on life support in the first place?  I also still wonder why life support is used in the first place if it causes so much controversy.  I will continue to look for more specific evidence that directly supports one side of the argument.