Biomedical Moral Issues

According to Porter, Johnson, and Warren (2005, p. 85), "Ethical issues about death, dying, and a person's right to make dnd-of-life decirions have become on of the most legally complex and culturally sensitive areas to emerge in our time." Certainly the Terry Schiavo situation illustrates the validity of this claim. For patients who are terminally ill and suffering from enormous pain, morphine or other pain relieving medications are often prescribed. While such drugs alleviate the patient's pain, they also contribute to the eventual loss of lung and other organ functioning, resulting in death. Ultimately, alleviating the pain of patients with terminal illnesses which provides them with an enhanced quality of life until they die is a morally sound decision.

The terminally ill patient is often classified as an individual confronting medical futility. Futile treatment is "defined as that the cannot, within a reasonable possibility, cure, ameliorate, improve the patient's condition or restore a quality of life that would be satisfactory to the patient," (Porter, et al. 2005, p. 86). However, providing medication in the form of morphine often improves a patient's here-and-now situation and quality of life, even though there is no hope of curing them. While these medications often hasten the death of the individual, during the time they have left to live they are spared enormous and debilitating pain. Therefore, providing such m

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