A Gentler Death -- Palliative Sedation

The Washington Post reports on the grey area of palliative sedation that can relieve suffering and hasten death.

Under palliative sedation, a doctor gives a terminally ill patient enough sedatives to induce unconsciousness. The goal is to reduce or eliminate suffering, but in many cases the patient dies without regaining consciousness....While aid-in-dying, or “death with dignity,” is legal in seven states and the District [of Columbia], medically assisted suicide retains tough opposition. Palliative sedation, though, has been administered since the hospice care movement began in the 1960s and is legal everywhere....

Because there are no laws barring palliative sedation, the dilemma facing doctors who use it is moral rather than legal, said Timothy Quill, who teaches psychiatry, bioethics and palliative-care medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

Some doctors are hesitant about using it “because it brings them right up to the edge of euthanasia,” Quill said.

But Quill believes that any doctor who treats terminally ill patients has an obligation to consider palliative sedation. “If you are going to practice palliative care, you have to practice some sedation because of the overwhelming physical suffering of some patients under your charge.”