Sue Rodriguez wanted to commit suicide in order to spare her family the agony of caring for her as her amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) worsened. She also wasn’t willing to accept living through the indignity that the final stages of the disease would causer her, and would much rather die peacefully and with self – worth, via physician assisted suicide. However, this particular case became problematic due to Canadian laws that were impeding her from fulfilling her death wish. This case presents us with a moral dilemma because it is clear that the euthanasia debate engages questions of medicine, law, politics, economics and most importantly, morality.
Sue’s case will be analyzed from a Utilitarian’s perspective which is a normative ethics …show more content…
However, both theories fail to provide an adequate structure in guiding Sue to make a suitable moral decision tailored to her extremely personal situation, making neither one truly applicable. Although a deontological framework adopts the belief that suicide is wrong due to the fact that self-love cannot be associated with death, it is clear that prolonging Sue’s life span would not be associated with the love that she has for herself but instead it would go against her strong minded nature of feeling a continued increase in pain and suffering that would most likely lead her to death anyway. The Utilitarian perspective is difficult to apply in Sue’s situation because it requires for her to make a future prediction in regards to evaluating and contemplating events that have not yet taken place, which brings to question; what if it would have been more painful for Sue’s family to experience more suffering as her conditions worsen as they typically do with ALS as opposed to being comforted by the fact that she lived to her last breath with dignity before her life became too excruciating for her family to bear? In such a case, I believe that sue has made the right decision because it is maximizing the greater good for the greatest
Sue’s case will be analyzed from a Utilitarian’s perspective which is a normative ethics …show more content…
However, both theories fail to provide an adequate structure in guiding Sue to make a suitable moral decision tailored to her extremely personal situation, making neither one truly applicable. Although a deontological framework adopts the belief that suicide is wrong due to the fact that self-love cannot be associated with death, it is clear that prolonging Sue’s life span would not be associated with the love that she has for herself but instead it would go against her strong minded nature of feeling a continued increase in pain and suffering that would most likely lead her to death anyway. The Utilitarian perspective is difficult to apply in Sue’s situation because it requires for her to make a future prediction in regards to evaluating and contemplating events that have not yet taken place, which brings to question; what if it would have been more painful for Sue’s family to experience more suffering as her conditions worsen as they typically do with ALS as opposed to being comforted by the fact that she lived to her last breath with dignity before her life became too excruciating for her family to bear? In such a case, I believe that sue has made the right decision because it is maximizing the greater good for the greatest