Healthcare Paper on Euthanasia: “Please let me die”
Euthanasia is defined as actions intended to end a person’s life deliberately as a result of pain and suffering. Cowart’s case can be considered a voluntary euthanasia because he requested the paramedics to let him die instead of taking him to hospital. This was mainly because Cowart was undergoing unbearable pain from the burns that covered a large part of his body. In this regard, autonomous principle allows an individual to determine whether to receive treatment or not. It is for this reason that Cowart wanted to end his life. On the other hand, there are various moral principles that care providers must adhere to in the course of duty. The principles that relate to Cowart’s case include beneficence, non-maleficence, integrity and justice.
Firstly, beneficence concerns patient advocacy in doing good. Practitioners should ensure that patients receive proper treatment with an aim of achieving optimal outcomes. The paramedics did this by ensuring that Cowart’s life was saved. Secondly, non-maleficence is a principle that requires care practitioners to be competent in order to avoid injury or even death. In this case, the competency offered to Cowart enabled him to undergo operations for amputations and skin grafts. If the care practitioners were incompetent, Cowart would not have survived considering the degree of burns he had. Thirdly, justice principle requires equality when caring for patients. This means that factors such as type of illness or place of injury should not be considered in the administration of treatment. The paramedics showed justice by going to the field and ensuring that Cowart’s life is saved. Finally, integrity principle advocates for considerate needs of a patient in the process of treatment. In this case, care providers opted for operation processes such as skin grafts in order to achieve positive results.
Based on the above principles, the paramedics did the moral thing in saving and enabling Cowart even to achieve a law degree.