Treatment For The Dying

For more than half a century, the advancement in modern technology has rendered treatment decision for the dying one of the major issues in medical ethics. Among those who take an acute interest in this debate was the famous catholic moral theologian Richard A. McCormick. Over the years, McCormick had constantly addressed these issues and thus left a rich heritage that will guide us through many of the troubled waters. It is therefore the aim of this paper to present McCormick's insights as well as his deliberations.We will first of all examine the basic values on which he founded his medical ethics, namely the meaning of life and death, the meaning of personhood as well as proportionism and the theory of natural law. After this we'll enter into the discussion of treatment decision for the dying, including McCormick's deliberation on the basis of foregoing treatment, the burden/benefit calculus (especially the quality of life judgment), the term ordinary/extrordinary, its history, the criticism it faces and the essence of the debate. At the end of this chapter we'll also look more closely at two kinds of treatment decisions which are particularly troublesome--that of serious defective newborns and that of PVS patients. The third chapter will focus on the decision-maker. It'll deal respectively with the principle of self-determination for the competent patients and proxy decision for the incompetent. The key issues are the limitation of self-determination and the guidelines for proxy judgment. After this, the fourth and the last chapter will talk about the social justice issues within the context of terminally ill. It will be divided into two parts: the responsibility of the society and that of the patient. This paper aims mainly at introducing McCormick's contribution to the said issues, but along the way the author will also offer comments and analyses so as to support his points or explore the possible weaknesses.