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Bioethics

Lessons (Not) Learned

Robert Card on the ethics of medical care at the end of life.

It is natural for humans to want control over their own lives. Since death is an inevitable part of being human, it is also understandable that people want control over the circumstances of their own death, if at all possible. As the field of medicine advances, more people face a choice about the length of their own life, and perhaps the lives of their loved ones. The recent case of Terri Schiavo in the United States has created an upsurge of interest in the foundational questions surrounding the ethics of end of life medical care. Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged woman who became dependent on a feeding tube when her heart stopped beating due to an eating disorder, became internationally known because of legal battles fought by her husband in order to have her feeding tube removed.

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