Lowe S L
Department of Philosophy, University of Durham.
J Med Ethics. 1997 Jun;23(3):154-8; discussion 161-3. doi: 10.1136/jme.23.3.154.
It is widely accepted now that a patient's right to refuse treatment extends to circumstances in which the exercise of that right may lead to the patient's death. However, it is also often effectively assumed, without argument, that this implies a patient's right to request another agent to intervene so as to bring about his or her death, in a way which would render that agent guilty of murder in the absence of such a request. But the right to refuse treatment can, logically, have no such implication, and the mistaken supposition that it does conflates a right to die with a right to be killed. Confusion over this issue is brought out by an examination of conflicting opinion concerning the permissible termination of ventilation for mentally competent patients. A wider lesson may be drawn regarding the need for the ethical assessment of new forms of life-sustaining medical technology.
现在人们普遍认为，患者拒绝治疗的权利延伸至行使该权利可能导致患者死亡的情形。然而，人们也常常在没有论证的情况下有效地假定，这意味着患者有权请求另一行为主体进行干预以促成其死亡，而若没有这样的请求，该行为主体会被判定犯有谋杀罪。但从逻辑上讲，拒绝治疗的权利不会有这样的含义，那种认为它有此含义的错误假设将死亡权与被杀死权混为一谈。对关于有行为能力的患者可允许终止通气的相互冲突的观点进行审视，就会凸显出这个问题上的混乱。关于对新型维持生命的医疗技术进行伦理评估的必要性，或许可以得出更广泛的教训。
