No physician has ever been convicted of a crime for medicating a dying patient with morphine.
That said, direct killing should remain illegal, for all the slippery slope reasons.
Is it ever necessary? Is it ever licit?
Those who know don’t say, and those who say, don’t know.
The patients were in great distress, and the only thing the doctor had to work with was sedatives--morphine.<> Of course, many died, and enterprising lawyers started calling for her head for "intentionally" killing them.
This was the single most enraging incident involving a cruel accusation to a doctor I have ever witnessed. There were criminal and civil charges against her, and patients came to try to testify as to her efforts. No one seemed to notice that she could have *walked* at any time. She eventually beat the rap, but not without arousing a bitterness in me that will never go away, towards the whole anti-doctor legal and cultural climate.
Now I've started hoping that the medical personnel just *walk*--and let the world see how many lawyers come to help!!