Palliative Sedation for Existential Pain An Ethical Analysis

Healthcare provides many ethical dilemmas and challenges for nurses attempting to individualize care for patients. One area of healthcare that has become a source of ethical controversy is the use of palliative sedation. The practice of palliative sedation is considered to be slow euthanasia or is compared to physician-assisted suicide by some healthcare professionals. While sedation was approved as a method to provide relief for dying patients experiencing refractory symptoms by the Supreme Court in 1997, its use continues to be a source of ethical distress among nurses.