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Should a patient in persistent vegetative state live?

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Abstract

Should a patient in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) live? Is the life of a patient in a mere biological state worthwhile maintaining? I would argue that the life of a PVS patient is instrumentally valuable in so far as it can satisfy the family’s preference to keep it alive. A PVS patient should live if the patient’s family desires it Conversely, the PVS patient should be allowed to die or be actively killed if no one desires him or her to live. Mere biological life has no value at all when no one finds it valuable and it is morally permissible to destroy something valueless to everyone.

Under what circumstances should the desires of a PVS patient’s family be disregarded? Their desire to keep the patient alive should not be unlimited if that would evidently harm other patients. The objection based on just resource allocation could set the limits of a family’s desire to keep the patient in a certain condition. I would argue that when only one bed is available in intensive care unit, the life and interests of conscious patient should override these of PVS patients and preferences of the family to keep the PVS patient alive. This is because harm that the conscious patient suffers is much more serious than that suffered by the family.

Whether to use organs of PVS patients is also discussed. Is the family’s donating the patients’ organs a minimum duty of no harm or an act of beneficence? It is uncertain. It might be a supererogatory action for the family to do so in a certain situation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Human Bioethics, Department of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, Kyoto University School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

    Atsushi Asai M. D., Dr (Honorary Visiting Research Fellow, Lecturer)

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  1. Atsushi Asai M. D., Dr
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Asai, A. Should a patient in persistent vegetative state live?. Monash Bioethics Review 18, 25–39 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03351220

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