End of Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

End of Life - Essay Example On the contrary, the scope of end-of-life care essentially aims to define guidelines for caring for patients whose death is expected or anticipated rather than working towards enhancing their life expectancy (Grinyer, 2011). The emergence of ethical dilemmas in end-of-life care are essentially rooted in handling sensitive issues and challenges which surface when executing significant decisions regarding an individual’s life. Thorns (2010) highlights that ethical considerations in the implementation of the process focus upon understanding the patient’s state so as to choose whether to continue with the treatment procedures or discontinue their provision. Moreover, under such circumstances where an individual likely does not possess the required psychological understanding to make correct decisions, concerned attendants and doctors are faced with either challenging the patients’ independence or agreeing with their choices thereby, granting them the right to possess complete control of their position and circumstances (Thorns, 2010). The emergence of ethical considerations in end-of-life care however, is not limited to the aforementioned assertions henceforth, this issue remains highly debated in scholarly circles; this paper applies three prominent ethical perspectives to critically evaluate and examine the concept from an ethical viewpoint. The utilitarian perspective explores theoretical issues from a multifaceted lens with reference to the concepts of end-of-life care and the role of doctors in the recognizing the independence and autonomy of patients with reference making their life decisions. As stated by Singer (2003) the nature of utilitarianism as a branch of consequentialism implies that the value of ethics in terms of each action or behavior is expected to be judged on an individual basis. In terms of examining the implications of adhering to utilitarianism the implications of the decision can be judged in a