ABSTRACT
Ethical dilemmas in medicine are the focus in this chapter. Is it ethical to refuse vaccination for one’s children? Is it ethical to withhold information from those who are ill, is for their own good? There are also those wrenching end-of-life decisions we must sometimes make for our loved ones in an age when medical technology prolongs life that is not always worth living; these rely heavily on the theory of autonomy developed in Chapter 6. Three highly realistic dilemmas involving terminally ill patients are considered: honoring a mentally incompetent patient’s prior instructions to withhold treatment, avoiding intervention for a mentally incompetent patient who left no instructions, and acceding to a conscious patient’s request to withhold treatment. This chapter concludes by exploring how limited health-care resources should be allocated, particularly in the context of medical triage. It leads to a brief examination of distributive justice issues that are yet to be resolved.
