End of Life Medical Issues
• 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?
• 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 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 therea 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 ethicallyrequiredtoprolongthat life?
• Under what circumstances (if any) would it beethicallyrequiredtoendthat life?