The Supreme Court’s decisions on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying

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问题     The Supreme Court’s decisions on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying patients of pain and suffering.
    Although it ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Court in effect supported the medical principle of "double effect", a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects—a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is foreseen—is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect.
    Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients’ pain, even though increasing dosages will eventually kill the patient.

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答案 最高法院对医生协助自杀所做的裁定给正在探求减轻病危病人痛苦的医学界以重大影响。 尽管最高法院裁定宪法没有赋予医生协助病人自杀的权利,但是最高法院事实上支持“双重效应”的医疗准则,这条履行了数百年的医疗道德准则认为:假如一种行为具有两种效应——既有以治病为目的的良好效应又有可预测的不利效应——那么为了实现这一良好效应,医生可以被允许实施治疗且不用考虑其不利效应。 最近几年来,医生们一直在用这一准则来为使用大剂量的吗啡以减轻濒危病人的病痛而辩护,尽管加大剂量会导致病人死亡。

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