Shortcomings and Inadequacies of Autonomy Argument for Euthanasia

Authors

  • Mohammad Manzoor Malik Assistant Professor Department of General Studies Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences International Islamic University

Keywords:

patient autonomy, golden rule, euthanasia, end of life decisions

Abstract

Patient autonomy has a critical role in making decisions in medical practice and it is accepted by international conventions on health care and various national medical codes. However, pertaining to terminally ill patients, this right becomes very problematic in regards to end of life decisions. Utilitarian ethicists motivated by materialistic worldview and individualism have made patient autonomy based arguments for the permissibility of active euthanasia. An appraisal of pro-euthanasia arguments that include the best interest, golden rule, and autonomy is made in this paper. The best interest and golden rule arguments are based on subjective moral judgment thus failing the universalization test. The argument from autonomy is unconvincing because of the confounded autonomy of the terminally ill patients.

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v5i2.19620

Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2014 Vol.5 (2): 61-67

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Published

2014-07-22

How to Cite

Malik, M. M. (2014). Shortcomings and Inadequacies of Autonomy Argument for Euthanasia. Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 5(2), 61–67. Retrieved from https://www.banglajol.info/index.php/BIOETHICS/article/view/19620

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 2 (2014)

Section

Articles

License

(c) Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics.  

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Articles in the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics are Open Access articles published under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. This license permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, is not changed in any way, and is not used for commercial purposes.