Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Double Effect Principle”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 253 records · Page 14Linked to original sources
PubMed2000

Are medical ethicists out of touch? Practitioner attitudes in the US and UK towards decisions at the end of life.

OBJECTIVES: To assess whether UK and US health care professionals share the views of medical ethicists about medical futility, withdrawing/withholding treatment, ordinary/extraordinary interventions, and the doctrine of double effect. DESIGN, SUBJECTS AND SETTING: A 138-item attitudinal questionnaire completed by 469 UK nurses studying the Open University course on "Death and Dying" was compared with a similar questionnaire administered to 759 US nurses and 687 US doctors taking the Hastings Center course on "Decisions near the End of Life". RESULTS: Practitioners accept the relevance of concepts widely disparaged by bioethicists: double effect, medical futility, and the distinctions between heroic/ordinary interventions and withholding/withdrawing treatment. Within the UK nurses' group a "rationalist" axis of respondents who describe themselves as having "no religion" are closer to the bioethics consensus on withholding and withdrawing treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Professionals' beliefs differ substantially from the recommendations of their professional bodies and from majority opinion in bioethics. Bioethicists should be cautious about assuming that their opinions will be readily accepted by practitioners.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2002

Two challenges to the double effect doctrine: euthanasia and abortion.

The validity of the double effect doctrine is examined in euthanasia and abortion. In these two situations killing is a method of treatment. It is argued that the doctrine cannot apply to the care of the dying. Firstly, doctors are obliged to harm patients in order to do good to them. Secondly, patients should make their own value judgments about being mutilated or killed. Thirdly, there is little intuitive moral difference between direct and indirect killing. Nor can the doctrine apply to abortion. Doctors kill fetuses as a means of treating the mother. They also kill them as an inevitable side effect of other treatment. Drawing a moral distinction between the direct and the indirect killing gives counterintuitive results. It is suggested that pragmatic rules, not ethics, govern practices around euthanasia and cause it to be more restricted than abortion.

Abortion, Legal↗
PubMed1979

Acts and omissions.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Double Effect Principle↗
PubMed2006

Medical research on patients with dementia--the role of advance directives in European legal instruments.

Current international legal instruments recognise the use of advance directives to carry on the will of the dementing research participant beyond the boundaries of her present legal capacity. Advance directives are gaining greater recognition in patient care than in medical research, where their legal status is still somewhat unclear. In particular, the three major international documents on medical research - the Council of Europe Convention on Biomedicine and Human Rights (ETS 164), its Additional Protocol on Biomedical Research (ETS 195), and Directive 2001/20/EC on Clinical Trials on Medicinal Products--give conflicting messages on the legal status of advance directives in medical research. This article examines the provisions in these documents and their national applications in Finland and the United Kingdom.

Advance Directives↗
PubMed1994

Depression, competence, and the right to refuse lifesaving medical treatment.

OBJECTIVE: The authors explore the possibility that psychiatrists inappropriately extend their views on suicide by the medically well to refusal of lifesaving treatment by the seriously medically ill. METHOD: The legal and bioethics literature on competence to refuse lifesaving treatment and the possible impact of depression on this refusal is reviewed. RESULTS: Over the past 20 years, the burden of proof concerning the mental competence of seriously medically ill patients who refuse lifesaving treatment has shifted to the persons who seek to override these refusals. However, in psychiatry a patient's desire to die is generally considered to be evidence of an impaired capacity to make decisions about lifesaving treatment. This contrast between ethical traditions is brought into clinical focus during the evaluation and treatment of medically ill patients with depression who refuse lifesaving treatment. The clinical evaluation of the effect of depression on a patient's capacity to make medical decisions is difficult for several reasons: 1) depression is easily seen as a "reasonable" response to serious medical illness, 2) depression produces more subtle distortions of decision making than delirium or psychosis (i.e., preserving the understanding of medical facts while impairing the appreciation of their personal importance), and 3) a diagnosis of major depression is neither necessary nor sufficient for determining that the patient's medical decision making is impaired. CONCLUSIONS: Depression can be diagnosed and treated in patients with serious medical illness. But after optimizing medical and psychiatric treatment and determining that the patient is competent to make medical decisions, it may be appropriate to honor the patient's desire to die.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1998

A final word.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Christianity↗
PubMed1995

Euphemisms for euthanasia.

Many patients are subject to 'do not resuscitate' orders or are 'allowed to die'. The predominant moral position within health care seems to be that this is permissible, while voluntary euthanasia is not. This paper attempts to consider the logic of that position. It is not intended as a case for or against voluntary euthanasia; those cases are made elsewhere. Instead, this is an attempt to challenge implicit assumptions. It is the experience of many nurses that issues relating to matters at the end of life are far from being resolved. This paper does not try to offer any practical solutions but aims at some clarification of the language used. This, it is hoped, will enable nurses to contribute to the debate.

Advisory Committees↗
PubMed1999

Physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia: is it time the UK law caught up?

People who wish to end their lives when they consider that they cannot endure further pain and suffering cannot legally obtain help to produce a peaceful death. The reality of practice seems to be that, covertly, physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia do take place. The value of personal autonomy in issues of consent has been clarified in the courts in that a competent adult person has the right to refuse or choose alternative treatments even if death will be the outcome. This issue needs open discussion and regulation in order to protect those vulnerable people in our society.

Adult↗