Lethal dosing

How could lethal dosing “foreseeably cause the death of the patient without implicating the physician who administered the lethal dose? The answer lies in . . . a transformation in the treatment of the dying from pain relief to pain management. . . . a manifestation of the expanding rule of technique [i.e., medical practice] in the treatment of the pain of dying patients ” (Lavi, 136). Under the aegis of technological-driven pain management (e.g., morphine drip), the “subjective intent of physicians is not central to the practice of lethal dosing any more than their subjective state of mind is relevant in preforming an operation. . . . The administration of pain relief is based neither on the patient’s request for pain medical nor on the medical judgment that such medication is necessary at a given time. Rather, the timetable [viz, as to when the patient will die] is replaced by the continuous drip, which now sets the pace for human action. . . for the medical profession, lethal dosing is a duty grounded not in morality but in ‘’’technicality’” (140-141).