The Supreme Court heard two right-to-die cases which have moved through the courts.
Definitions of assisted suicide are:
| Assisted suicide is generally understood as occurring when one person provides the means (e.g., medication or weapon) for another person to commit suicide |
| Active euthanasia is the direct action of one person to end another person’s life. |
Nurses will be involved in this issue in many ways including families asking what they should do, other nurses expressing their opinions, to physicians increasing morphine drip dosages but delegating nurses to administer. A multi-site study published reports of ICU (intensive care unit or critical care) nurses describing frequent involvement with assisting patient death in their care of critically ill patients. Read this report and the editorials written about the study. Read books or other writings on this topic. Sugested books from groups working on this issue include: Final Blessings, Tibetan Book of the Dead, How We Die, or Dying Well.
It is important for nurses to know both sides of this issue - and to have thought through their own point of view just as those in the editorials have. Read the opposing points of view in the comparison table below and other assigned readings on the topic then complete the assignment to use your consultant or collaboration skills in working with other nurses on this topic. You will need to separate your own point of view on any specific aspect of this ethical/legal issue when you are in a consultant or collaboration role with others. In the last text boxes below describe the skills of thoughtful contemplation of your own point of view, recognition of beliefs that may be different than your own, understanding legal aspects of an ethical dilemma, that you have gained by reading, thinking and participating in this assignment.