Death With Dignity — On the Withdrawal of Life-Sustaining Measures

Abstract

The methods for diagnosis and treatment have today reached a degree of refinement and efficacy which tends to make them too powerful tools in our hands, when dealing with critically ill patients. In top-equipped hospitals, it is not quite uncommon to witness processes of dying more extended than what should be natural in a biological, psychological as well as ethical perspective. To use our formidable diagnostic and therapeutic capacity in a reasonable fashion is indeed a challenge, not least to the less experienced doctor or nurse. With a scent of black humour, someone in my country recently made this very pertinent remark: “The progress in medical research has increased the average age of man, by lengthening the process of his dying”.