Week 1 Essay

End of Life Medical Issues (Week One) • Do people have a right to end their lives whenever they choose to?

• Can people be mistaken about whether their life has value and ought to be ended?

• Does the answer to this question affect the answer to the first question?

• Can we set polices that determine in each case what the value of a human life is and when it should or should not be ended?

• Does the answer to this question affect the answer to the first question?

• Does it make a difference whether a person’s life is ended by an act of active killing, or whether it is simply allowed to expire?

• Does it make a difference whether the agent (i.e., the person causing the death), in either case, is the person himself or herself or someone else (such as a doctor)?

• Is there a limit to the amount of resources we should allocate toward the preservation of a life in the face of limited resources for other healthcare needs?

• Considering lives that are on the brink of death, under what circumstances (if any) would it be ethically wrong to prolong that life?

• Under what circumstances (if any) would it be ethically required to prolong that life?

• Under what circumstances (if any) would it be ethically required to end that life?