Double Effect Test.

Double Effect Test.

The doctrine of double effect states that if by doing something that is morally good yet has some potentially harmful effects in it. It is ethical to do it as much as the lousy intention was not intended to happen. Doctors justify a case in which doctors have given patients drugs to relieve a stressful and painful situation, whereas he knows the drugs will shorten his life hence using this principle to solve the issue. The double effect is in justifying the use of a high dosage of drugs such as morphine to relieve pain in terminally sick patients while they know the medicines might cause the patient to die.

It is morally permissive for the doctor to agree to the patient’s request reluctantly, and he is supposed to perform this request. Four conditions must be met so as the action can be approved as morally permissive (Fletcher et al., 2015). They will try to see that the right result must be achieved independently of the bad one, and the unfortunate results must not only be the means of producing only a good result. The second one is that the action to be taken must be directly proportional to the cause. By giving him an overdose helps him in relieving pain, and this does not mean I was double effect was used as a legitimate way. Thirdly, the actions to be done to this patient should be appropriate, and this is achieved by giving the patient the right medicine. This is not helping them recover from their symptoms but relieving their pain. Also, by doing this, you may provide the patient correct dosage for their symptoms. Fourthly, the patient must be in the terminal situation, and this applies where there is no other way of recovering from the situation like for the case of a 36-year old accountant who has immunoblastic Lymphadenopathy, a fatal malignant tumor of the lymph nodes. Theologians and philosophers do emphasize the fourth step, and the foreseen case of death is of more value in this stage. This fourth stage also embraces consequentialist reasoning and ensures that it does not render any more complex features of the principle argument.

All these conditions have been met as the patient has been diagnosed as having immunoblastic Lymphadenopathy, a fatal malignant tumor of the lymph nodes. Has received various treatments, and the situation keeps on worsening (Edward, 2008). All medical and surgical measures have been exhausted and suffer from nerve root pain; he has been given all the addictive narcotics. Besides, he has used a lot of money in trying to treat the condition, and this has led to exhausting family resources.  His wife and family started to withdraw from him emotionally, in anticipation of his inevitable death. Having reconciled himself to his death, he then decides to ask the doctor for the means of killing himself to end his pain, the suffering of his family, and the depletion of the funds that are so important for his family’s future well-being. He sees death as the only solution.

Work Cited

Fletcher, Joseph F. Morals and Medicine: the moral problems of the patient’s right to know the truth, contraception, artificial insemination, sterilization, euthanasia. Princeton University Press, 2015.

Shorter, Edward. From paralysis to fatigue: a history of psychosomatic illness in the modern era. Simon and Schuster, 2008.