End Of Life Care Analysis

“The doctrine of double effect holds that harms may even be foreseen and still be morally tolerable provided they were not intended” (Veatch, 56). Although this doctrine was written to uphold a physician to a certain standard of care, this doctrine can be applied to the Ornstein’s family in their decision to prolong the mother’s life. “A Mother’s Death Tested Reporter’s Thinking About End-of-Life Care” depicted the struggles that families undergo when the ability to prolong life artificially is there yet the patient has no true say when they’re brain-dead or unconscious. This article shined light on decisions that the average family is not ready to make, disconnect a family member from a respirator. Although it was expressed that the mother didn’t want to be artificially kept alive, the family’s doing-so is morally tolerable because the harm was not intended. …show more content…
Modern society sometimes forgets that medicine is a science and a lot of experiments have to take place to come up with a solution. It was organic for the Ornstein family to want all possible tests exploited before they give up to the idea that the mother is alive. There have been instances when physicians have been wrong with diagnoses and prognosis due to the human error factor. Bringing in other experts in the field was a way to confirm the mother’s status without there being doubt and, at the same time, provide closure for the family. Although it was the mother’s wish to stay away from artificial life, death had to be confirmed and this took time. The harm done by not fulfilling the wish in a timely manner was not intended and therefore morally