Autonomy basically means “self-rule” and it’s the most basic right of a patient. It is usually expressed as competent adult right to make decisions that are informed about their identifiable medical care. A healthcare worker should then respect the patient’s autonomy or seek their consent before carrying out ant investigation or treatment. However this is difficult at times as it conflicts with the attitude of the paternalist of the healthcare professional.
It is plausible that autonomy is a central value in medical ethics and that patients who are granted autonomy are mostly in good position to determine their fate in regards to what is bad or good for them. And it can then be argued that it is always best to consider the autonomy of a patient to gain instrumental value in treatment. In the case of a woman who walked into an emergency room and was diagnosed with abdominal aortic aneurysm that would lead to her death if the aneurysm busted in a few short minutes. This aneurysm is said to have caused the death of John Ritter and the only way it could be fixed was through surgery. The woman refused because it would have left her with a scar which would affect her work as an erotic dancer. However, the surgeons decided to operate on her without consent and manage to repair the aneurysm. This was a violation of her basic right and she sues the hospital for millions of dollars for this. According to the surgeons the woman was not in her correct state of mind but some bioethics hold the ground that the woman should have been allowed to make her own choice in regards to whether the surgery was well fitted for her even if it is not clear for the involved parties that the choice would serve the wellbeing of the patient. Patient autonomy should be accepted with no limit if it does not pose any harm to others. Autonomy is a regarded as a fundamental values and these values cannot be justified.
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However according to medical ethics and by James Racheals in “ethics of value” the healthcare professionals who are surgeons in this particular case had virtues to uphold. According to the moral theory which attempts to differentiate between wrong and right actions, Kantianism theory which states that “An action is morally right if and only if its maxim is universalizable”, the surgeons made the decision to operate on the woman based on the factor that most people would have opted for this option because it upholds virtue and because it maximizes utility for the greatest number of people. This action shows the moral character of the surgeon although it compromises the basic humanitarian right of the patient. The surgeons analyzed what was required of them at that moment and the human situation and choose the best decision that suited the situation although they did it at the expense of being sued and upholding the patients’ rights.
