Stakeholder #3

Because of the large amounts and different levels of extremity that each stakeholder in the controversy has, the following post is dedicated to explaining the point of view of one of the most important stakeholder in this particular controversy.

Medical Professionals and Ethics Experts

Branson, Bill. "Oncology Doctor Consults with Patient" 01/21/2013 via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain license.

Who?

There are many medical professionals and ethics experts who have experience in medicine that believe that every human in the United States should have the option to choose to die if death is in their future because of illness. This group is made up of professionals in various fields, and is represented by a few choice leaders, who are in favor of giving the option of physician-assisted death. All of these people work in medical and ethical philosophy fields, where their prime concerns are taking care of patients and determining what is really the right thing to do in many cases. All of the people whose opinions i have included in my quotations are people who are very qualified professionals, and can be looked up. 

What?

"If a person with unimpaired capacities for judgment comes to the conclusion that his or her future is so clouded that it would be better to die than to continue to live, the usual reason against killing-that it deprives the being killed of the goods that life will bring-is turned into its opposite, a reason for acceding to that person's request." -Peter Singer

Read the whole article here.

“Physician aid-in-dying should be possible, but not easy. We cannot circumvent the richness of the decision-making process. Doctors must agree on a policy of non-abandonment, and stay with their patients through whatever decisions those patients make.” -Timothy Quill

Read the whole article here.


“Critics are worried about her partly because she’s speaking to that new audience, and they know that the younger generation of America has shifted attitudes about gay marriage and the use of marijuana, and maybe they are going to have the same impact in pushing physician-assisted suicide forward. That seems to be the reason that she is commanding so much attention. She may change the politics here.” -Arthur Caplan 

Read the whole article here. 

Why should we listen to them?

These people are proponents of the movement to make physician-assisted suicide legal, but are also professionals in respected fields that have to do with the controversy. These people are staking their reputations on their opinions about a controversy. The view of someone with a lot at stake regarding their opinion is an opinion that is worth paying attention to. 

Medical professionals and ethics experts in relation to others:

Medical professionals and ethics experts who advocate the passing of a law that would guarantee rights to all people in all states the right to die are a more objective stakeholder than emotional like Brittany Maynard was. They are much more objective, rather than subjective with their opinions because for them, it is not emotional, but rather an issue that concerns their profession that they can look at objectively. On the opposite side of the spectrum from them would be the Catholic opponents, who are very subjective with their views and are against the issue. Closely related to them would be medical professionals who are against the issue rather than for it.