PrepTest 84, Section 2, Question 5
Lawyer: In a risky surgical procedure that is performed only with the patient's informed consent, doctors intentionally cause the patient's heart and brain functions to stop by drastically reducing the patient's body temperature. When the procedure is completed, body temperature is quickly restored. Because the doctors deliberately stop the patient's life functions, if these functions do not resume following the procedure, the medical team is technically guilty of manslaughter.
Lawyer: In a risky surgical procedure that is performed only with the patient's informed consent, doctors intentionally cause the patient's heart and brain functions to stop by drastically reducing the patient's body temperature. When the procedure is completed, body temperature is quickly restored. Because the doctors deliberately stop the patient's life functions, if these functions do not resume following the procedure, the medical team is technically guilty of manslaughter.
Lawyer: In a risky surgical procedure that is performed only with the patient's informed consent, doctors intentionally cause the patient's heart and brain functions to stop by drastically reducing the patient's body temperature. When the procedure is completed, body temperature is quickly restored. Because the doctors deliberately stop the patient's life functions, if these functions do not resume following the procedure, the medical team is technically guilty of manslaughter.
Lawyer: In a risky surgical procedure that is performed only with the patient's informed consent, doctors intentionally cause the patient's heart and brain functions to stop by drastically reducing the patient's body temperature. When the procedure is completed, body temperature is quickly restored. Because the doctors deliberately stop the patient's life functions, if these functions do not resume following the procedure, the medical team is technically guilty of manslaughter.
Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the lawyer's analysis?
Any time a medical procedure could result in the patient's death, the medical team could be charged with manslaughter.
If a medical procedure is known to carry a very high risk of causing the patient's death, then only if the patient does die can the doctors be guilty of manslaughter.
One is guilty of manslaughter only when one intends to cause irreversible loss of a person's life functions.
Deliberately bringing about the cessation of a person's life functions is manslaughter if and only if the cessation is permanent.
Intentionally stopping a patient's life functions is manslaughter unless the patient agrees to the procedure and might die without treatment.
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