On OUP’s Medical Monday blog, Robert Veatch talks about the decision made by Michael Jackson’s physician to offer him what was arguably a potentially lethal dose of the anesthetic, propofol, and the trade-off that he believes that Mr. Jackson and Dr. Murray made to give him some much needed rest.

This decision, says Veatch, was one doctors must often make where unintended but foreseen consequences exist that may even include death but that the potential benefits often outweigh those consequences.

In such cases, the outcomes are not considered “homicides”, particularly when the decisions are made between a trusted doctor and a consenting patient.

Of course, these claims made by Dr. Veatch are all assumptions in the Jackson case, but were they to be true, then his analysis would be sound. Moreover, from a simple medical ethics perspective it would seem that the key question here–that no one will ever really know the answer to is the nature of the relationship between Dr. Murray and Michael Jackson. Was he trusted implicitly to make those decisions? And on that fatal day did Jackson agree to take those medications or was the consent at least implicit because of the nature of the relationship?

If the answers to those questions are in the affirmative, then Veatch may have something here. If not, then I think that he may be looking for a solution to this criminal case via bioethics that simply does not hold up.

Summer Johnson, PhD