When Mercy Seasons Justice

Abstract

This monograph derives in large part from the University Lecture in Religion and Politics entitled, The Quality of Mercy and Common Dignity: Safeguarding The Last Right, and delivered at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, March 1, 2007. In June, 1994, the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs of the American Medical Association determined that physicians are not obligated, ethically, to deliver care which will not have a reasonable chance of benefitting their patients. For some, this policy has been the source for exploring the contemporary validity of the principle of medical futility. Accordingly, this monograph explores the rationale of this principle and concludes that its application should not be seen as causing or aiding a suicide but - rather - is viewed more correctly as a compassionate and merciful act of adjusted end-of-life care. Managing refractory pain in end-stage illnesses is a proper medical goal. And, legally, the validity of this goal has been recognized eloquently in a concurring opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in a 1997 case before the United States Supreme Court styled Washington v. Glucksberg. Legislatively, the state of Oregon acted - in passing its Death with Dignity Act - to re-enforce the right of its citizens, who are terminally ill, to a humane death. The debate and defeat of the Assisted Dying for The Terminally Ill Act on May 12, 2006, by the British House of Lords, is analyzed as a contemporary paradigm of the complex socio-religious and medico-legal values at play in this area of concern. The conclusion drawn from the monograph is that the principle of medical futility is an equitable and tested mechanism to assist policy makers, legislatively, and legal and medical decision makers, in resolving conflicts over the nature and extent of the right to die with dignity. Tempering the attitudes of all those who participate in setting standards of normative conduct within the crucible of acceptable societal action here should be an awareness of the admonition that mercy should always season the administration of justice and an appreciation that the merciful receive, ultimately, mercy themselves.