Introduction: Moral absolutism sometimes called a deontological approach to ethics suggests that there are eternal moral values and eternal moral principles that are applicable everywhere. ßThis is an accepted position of those who believe in a God who establishes moral order in the universe. In contrast, ethical relativism or teleotological ethics asserts that when two individuals or two cultures disagree about what is right and ethical, both can be right. ßIn other words, moral views are not right or wrong but reflect the way different cultures feel and think. Consequence based ethical reasoning focuses on the good that results from an action while rules based ethics focuses on rules acquired from religion, experience, education, introspection and self-analysis.
At one time, death meant the termination of breathing and heartbeat. Technology has made it possible to sustain respiration and heartbeat almost indefinitely, even when there is no brain activity. As a result, brain death became the next standard of death for doctors. Brain death is the current standard used to determine death. Peter Setness writing in Postgraduate Medicine comments that medical science now offers the ability to sustain life under remarkably adverse conditions. Patients whose prognosis would have been deemed hopeless just a decade or two ago now routinely receive life-prolonging care. Even patients with terminal conditions can experience longer lives. Advances in transplant therapy, chemotherapy and mechanical life support offer the opportunity to extend survival, but these tools prolong the suffering for some patient. In these scenarios, a patient's right to die argument becomes relevant. There are instances in which patients want to die to end suffering, or family members wish to turn off life support if and when it becomes clear that the patient will never have a meaningful quality of life. Many people believe these are reasonable arguments in ...