Ethical Decision Making 2

Ethical Decision Making
PAS is an intentional cessation of one’s life, through the usage of a toxic substance, with the direct or indirect aid of a medical practitioner. The clinician provides a medicament to the patient that slowly and painlessly ends his or her life. According to Louanne (2011), she claims that some philosophers regard this type of suicide as a rational protest against conventional morality. On the same note, the act has its proponents who support the action and opponents who believe that it infringes the ultimate ideology of medicine. Therefore, they consider that doctors should not offer support to suicide victims because the act is discordant with the physician’s role as a shaman. Thus, this paper shall discuss how beneficence and non-maleficence are operative in the discussion of physician-assisted suicide. On the same note, the article shall depict the position that the American Nurses Association hold on PAS.
Beneficence is the obligation to contribute absolutely to the well-being of a patient. Advocates of abetted suicide claim that helping distressed patients to die after bellicose attempts to cope with psycho-spiritual agony is a sympathetic rejoinder to the medical fiasco (Jie, 2015). Some of the physicians have given testimonies of particular cases under which life-threatening anguish made them support patients to pass on. They claim that the only beneficent approach that was available under those circumstances was assisted death in comparison to other forms of medication.

Therefore, the act has noteworthy insinuations to nurses who are personally involved in design and provision of analgesic care.
On the other hand, non-maleficence is supported by the group of people who oppose assisted suicide. They claim that assisting patients to die can never be beneficent because the act violates the fundamental idea found in religious writings. The writings argue that a direct human act should never end the sacred nature of life. Conferring to Jie (2015), he claims that nurses face many ethical dilemmas in their professional practice as they take care of patients at the end of their life stage. Therefore, many religions and theologians have applied this stance for the support of their opposition towards the act. According to non-maleficence, superfluous determinations should be employed to revive suffering and deliver an evocative sustenance system instead of supporting the patient to die. Therefore, the public should come with a communal caring unit that shall offer support to the ill and disabled people in the society. Consequently, this will discourage them from looking at physician-assisted suicide as an option of terminating their suffering. Similarly, the implementation of PAS has depicted flaws which should not be ignored or underestimated. Hence, alternative solutions should be implemented like an increase in training to patients at the end of life care and maintain dialogue between healthcare providers and patients in making crucial decisions (Louanne, 2011).
The American Nursing Association is intensely opposed to the involvement of nurses in the act of abetted suicide. The association’s statement claim that physician-assisted suicide is a direct violation of “the code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements,” the ethical traditions, the goals of the nursing profession and the covenant nurses have with the society. On the same note, the association acknowledges the distress that nurses face when they are requested to participate in assisted suicide. Nurses, discretely and jointly, have a commitment to offer inclusive and empathetic end-of-life upkeep which comprises of the promotion of coziness and the reprieve of agony (Louanne, 2011). On the same note, they are obligated to forego life-sustaining treatments to patients across the globe.
In conclusion, the arguments on beneficence and non-maleficence on physician-assisted suicide depict different reasons for the support of their stands. Similarly, the position of American Nurses Association on its opposition to the act implies that nurses across the globe should not employ assisted suicide. Therefore, the non-maleficence group of physicians carries the day as their arguments get the support of different associations of nurses and doctors. Similarly, theologians and religious leaders are against the act that the beneficence group of physicians supports.

References
Jie, L. (2015). The patient suicide attempt – An ethical dilemma case study. International Journal Of Nursing Sciences, 2(4), 408-413. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2015.01.013
Louanne, M. (2011). Physician-Assisted Suicide: Death With Dignity? Journal Of Nursing Law, 14(3 & 4), 110.