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Teresa And Terrence Summary

825 Words4 Pages

Marmar Tavasol
Word Count: 815
The Right to End Suffering Mrs. Brown, a patient with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) should have the option to end her life prematurely or to stay alive and suffer tremendously from a disease that is bound to kill her. Based on the readings and lecture in class, it has become apparent to me that choosing to die by withdrawing medication and choosing to die by taking medication follow very similar reasoning. On the paper Story of Teresa & Terrence - The Established Medical/Legal View, a parallel description of the reasoning that is followed for each case is shown, making clear the logical differences of each patient. In my opinion, the differences in the two cases of Teresa and Terrence are trivial at best. Both patients are choosing to die and taking deliberate measures to do so by changing the routine(s) of their treatment. If the means to die by stopping medication are permissible, the means to die by taking medication ought to be permissible. The advent of technology has made many contributions to sustain life. However, before this technology, many people would die without years of suffering. Today, people with critical illnesses are given the option to stop treatment in order to hasten death. However, those in similar conditions, except being on life-sustaining medicine, do not have the …show more content…

Quill discusses how helping one of his patients to face death with dignity taught him that with knowing patients enough to know their true intentions for wanting to end their lives, he can provide the doctor care that he intends to. Dr. Quill had a working relationship with his patient, Diane who was diagnosed with myelomonocytic leukemia, a terminal disease that does not have any proven treatment or cure. By providing an indirect way for Diane to end her life, Dr. Quill allowed her to end her life prematurely, but with dignity and before being in a state that nobody would ever want to be

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