Ethical Decision Making Issues on Palliative Seduction

Résumé ou Introduction

This paper will provide a critical analysis of palliative seduction, especially with regard to ethical decision making in physician-assisted suicide.

It is evident that nurses play pivotal roles in the implementation of palliative seduction. Arevalo et al (2013) state “that nurses are important participants in the different phases of implementation of palliative sedation; starting with the day-to-day care of terminally ill patients and their relatives” (p. 618). Palliative seduction has become one of the most contentious ethical issues in the United States of America. Consequently, ethical decision making has also become one of the most challenging issues to baccalaureate prepared nurses and society at large. Nurses experience immense challenges while caring for patients in palliative care, especially in making end-of-life decisions. Fernandes and Moreira (2012) reaffirm the challenges faced by nurses in ethical decision making by stating that nurses “consider that end-of-life decisions, privacy, interaction between nurse/patient and/or family, team work, and access to care arise in their daily life” (p. 81). This is, probably the principal reason as to why current debate over whether palliative seduction in physician-assisted suicide should be legalized or not has evoked unprecedented controversy in the society. From a critical approach, the issue of palliative seduction has been complicated by the doctrine of double effect. However, this doctrine does not have legal, empirical and ethical relevance.