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Ethicists: No Way to Justify Mercy Deaths
Despite horrific medical conditions including triple-digit temperatures, no electricity and useless lifesaving equipment, ethicists and even some doctors caught in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath say there's no way to justify killing a sick or dying patient.
"You've got at best mercy and panic, but that doesn't add up to an excusable homicide," said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan.
No one knows if that happened in New Orleans, but a doctor and two nurses were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of murder charges. They are accused of giving fatal doses of morphine and a sedative to four patients stranded at a New Orleans hospital after the catastrophic storm last August.
The worst-case scenario would be if the doctors "tried to save themselves and didn't want to feel guilty leaving the patients behind and killed them," he said.
The best-case scenario, he said, would be if the accused "believed all possibility of maintaining people on technology has come to an end, you're out of power and your battery power is running out and you say, 'I can't let these people suffer.'"
"Under American law, neither scenario would be excusable," Caplan said.