Palliative Care and Patient Autonomy: Moving Beyond Prohibitions Against Hastening Death

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) upholds policies prohibiting practices that deliberately hasten death. We find these policies overly restrictive and unreasonable. We argue that under specified circumstances it is both reasonable and morally sound to allow for treatments...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inHealth services insights Vol. 2016; no. 9; pp. 37 - 42
Main Authors LiPuma, Samuel H, DeMarco, Joseph P
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States SAGE Publishing 08.12.2016
Sage Publications Ltd. (UK)
Libertas Academica
Subjects
Assisted suicide
Hospices
Palliative care
Right to die
Oregon
continuous sedation until death
end of life care
palliative care
physician assisted suicide
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) upholds policies prohibiting practices that deliberately hasten death. We find these policies overly restrictive and unreasonable. We argue that under specified circumstances it is both reasonable and morally sound to allow for treatments that may deliberately hasten death; these treatments should be part of the NHPCO guidelines. Broadening such policies would be more consistent with the gold standard of bioethical principles, ie, respecting the autonomy of competent adults.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1178-6329
1178-6329
DOI:10.4137/HSI.S39013