attitude: a grouping of beliefs around a specific object or a situation;
how people feel about something.
2-3.
ETHICAL VALUES VARY BY FAMILY, SEX, RACE, AGE GROUP,
NATIONALITY, AND SO FORTH.
a. Dutch Views on Euthanasia. If you go to the Netherlands, you will find that
the medical and legal communities hold a much more tolerant view of euthanasia
(mercy killing). That is because the values, beliefs, and attitudes of the culture, as a
whole, predispose them toward such a viewpoint.
(1) The Dutch people call it "the gentle death." Every year in the
Netherlands, physicians perform euthanasia on 2,000 to 5,000 people. Patients who
are near to death account for most cases, but recently people with chronic bronchitis,
multiple sclerosis, and debilitating rheumatism have also been granted their wish to die.
So open is the idea now (with two-thirds of the Dutch people favoring this practice) that
2 years ago, the Royal Dutch Pharmacists' Association published a physician's guide
detailing the most efficient and least painful drugs for use in carrying out mercy killing.
Officially, euthanasia is against the law (the penalty 12 years in prison). "But while
Dutch lawmakers feel the taking of a life should remain an answerable offense,
physicians routinely satisfy prosecutors by following court guidelines for pleading
`conflict of duty'."5
(2) The right to die as part of the patient's bill of right. "The Dutch contend
that a patient's justifiable wish to die outweighs any attempt to prolong life."6 By
following guidelines resulting from a case that came to trial in 1972, physicians will not
be charged. The three main criteria for euthanasia in the Netherlands are as follows: 1)
there must be an explicit and a repeated request by the patient to exercise euthanasia;
2) the physical pain or the mental pain must be severe and without hope of relief (the
patient's decision must be of free will and enduring); 3) all other options must either be
exhausted or be refused by the patient (the physician must consult another physician
and must record for the local prosecutor all events leading up to the final hour). In the
Netherlands, then, the ethical system gives higher importance to the rights of individual
self-determination and the quality of life. These are viewed as higher moral imperatives
than the intrinsic sanctity of life.
(3) Accounting for ethical differences among nations. As you can see,
ethical values are culturally based. Heleen Dupuis, Professor of Bioethics at the
University of Leiden (in Holland), explains the reason for national differences on
euthanasia. "Before 1940, most people died quickly from some infections without much
pain. Now it takes people much longer to die. Some of our cases are AIDS victims.
But
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