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Compassion, Suffering, Morality: Ethical Dilemmas in Caring

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2021

Anne J. Davis
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Extract

Few healthy people welcome death, but most would welcome a quick, easy death to avoid suffering and the loss of control over their lives. We need to ask: what sort of human environment do we hope for at the end of our lives? What will the world and our own living in it look like when we know we are about to die? What kind of human relationships will sustain us through this most personal of life's experiences when we may become more dependent on others? Do we fear we will either be abandoned through lack of meaningful personal contact with significant others, or be actors in a tragi-comedy of pretense in which authentic forms of human expression are unattainable?

Type
Research Article
Information
Nursing Law & Ethics , Volume 2 , Issue 5 , May 1981 , pp. 1 - 8
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1981

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