Medical Ethics | Prolonging Life and Death: An Overview

Deciding when to live and when to die is an issue that has only recently begun to confront the human species. It is a difficult decision, and we are not yet skilled in making it. Today, doctors and patients are increasingly being forced to make these life and death—and quality of life and death—decisions amid rapid technological change, startling new medical discoveries, an aggressively litigious society, and sharply disagreeing medical ethicists.

Discussion on medical ethics now involves two competing theories about the nature of health care. One is the “curing”...

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