9. Death, Dying, and Assisted Suicide, Part 1 [Ethics at the Edge of Life]

[AverageCatholic]

Dr. Rae shows clear signs of therapeutic nihilism when the patient can't speak and act autonomously, and isn't youthful or has limited prospects for future autonomy. He doesn't fully grasp the "twin traps" of the Hippocratic Oath. Overtreatment is *most certainly* a problem in our modern medical systems. But so is the other extreme. He errs on the side of therapeutic nihilism, and breezily accepts the dehydration death of the cognitively disabled, and is an outspoken advocate for this.

[AverageCatholic]

The modern version of the Hippocratic Oath was written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, the Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University. In it he expresses the sentiment of avoiding two extremes:

"I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism."

[AverageCatholic]

Well I guess you can't copy, paste, and insert '.' for '(dot)' in that url string. You could type the modified string from scratch exactly, but far easier to google the title "Pro-Life Suites: A response to two articles on ANH"

[AverageCatholic]

The above referred to above by Lydia McGrew may be googled up by its title: "Pro-Life Suites: A response to two articles on ANH".

You can also remove the '(dot)' and insert '.' in the string below to construct the proper url, but if that doesn't work just google the title. whatswrongwiththeworld(dot)net­/2009/09/a_proper_fisking_of_t­wo_articl(dot)html

[AverageCatholic]

Vitalism is bad; dehydrating to death another matter. Rae's assertion that dehydrating to death is "permissible" needs an argument, and his only ones depend on appallingly bad theology. Here is one well-known philosopher that eviscerates his theological arguments - problem should be apparent to any decent philosophy student.

whatswrongwiththeworld(dot)net­/2009/09/a_proper_fisking_of_t­wo_articl(dot)html

lydiaswebpage(dot)blogspot(dot­)com/2010/06/ordinary-care-and­-expensive-lives(dot)html