RUNNING HEAD: DNR ISSUES 1
HCA 322
(Health Care Ethics and Medical Law - Ashford)
Week 5
Final Paper:
Do-Not-Resuscitate: Legal and Ethical Issues
, DNR Issues 2
Do-Not-Resuscitate: Legal and Ethical Issues
Most cultures value life and bringing persons back from the dead is a popular subject of
many fictional books. However, as technology evolves and the story of Frankenstein reborn with
a bolt of lighting has come true with the external or implanted defibrillators, the natural process
of death slows as much of society gains the knowledge to live longer than nature intended. The
Red Cross Association taught many organizations like the girl and boy scouts the methods of
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and Cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR, a manual
manipulation of the heart, as life saving methods for drowning, electrocution or heart attacks.
First aid for laypersons to save lives as well as doctors and no one is thinking that the person did
not want to live after such an event. Thus, came the dawning of the provision of the do-not-
resuscitate (DNR) order or provision stating not to initiate CPR if the individual is not breathing
or the heart stops. Individuals wishing not to be resuscitated after clinical death can choose to
place that advance directive in a living will as a do not resuscitate order directing that no CPR is
to be attempted. The ideal of persons exercising their right to autonomy or their right to make
decisions about healthcare before they are incompetent to do so is sound, but the DNR is
burdened with controversy, complicated and emotionally charged.
Eventually, the DNR directive became standard in hospice and end of life care, which led
medical and state authorities to create and enforce clearly affirmed policies about when to delay
or ensue with the action. In these policies, emphasis on the patient autonomy and surrogates for
the patient can possibly take precedence over the decision of the doctor as a priority decision-
maker, especially in the moments of impending death. During this time of incapacitation, the
intentions of the patient are important in necessitating the resuscitative/CPR order. However, in
an emergency, a controversy centers on who should have the authority over the making of the
HCA 322
(Health Care Ethics and Medical Law - Ashford)
Week 5
Final Paper:
Do-Not-Resuscitate: Legal and Ethical Issues
, DNR Issues 2
Do-Not-Resuscitate: Legal and Ethical Issues
Most cultures value life and bringing persons back from the dead is a popular subject of
many fictional books. However, as technology evolves and the story of Frankenstein reborn with
a bolt of lighting has come true with the external or implanted defibrillators, the natural process
of death slows as much of society gains the knowledge to live longer than nature intended. The
Red Cross Association taught many organizations like the girl and boy scouts the methods of
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and Cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR, a manual
manipulation of the heart, as life saving methods for drowning, electrocution or heart attacks.
First aid for laypersons to save lives as well as doctors and no one is thinking that the person did
not want to live after such an event. Thus, came the dawning of the provision of the do-not-
resuscitate (DNR) order or provision stating not to initiate CPR if the individual is not breathing
or the heart stops. Individuals wishing not to be resuscitated after clinical death can choose to
place that advance directive in a living will as a do not resuscitate order directing that no CPR is
to be attempted. The ideal of persons exercising their right to autonomy or their right to make
decisions about healthcare before they are incompetent to do so is sound, but the DNR is
burdened with controversy, complicated and emotionally charged.
Eventually, the DNR directive became standard in hospice and end of life care, which led
medical and state authorities to create and enforce clearly affirmed policies about when to delay
or ensue with the action. In these policies, emphasis on the patient autonomy and surrogates for
the patient can possibly take precedence over the decision of the doctor as a priority decision-
maker, especially in the moments of impending death. During this time of incapacitation, the
intentions of the patient are important in necessitating the resuscitative/CPR order. However, in
an emergency, a controversy centers on who should have the authority over the making of the
