Critical Review 

To-Do Date: Jan 30 at 11:59pm

 

This week, you will be selecting an issue on the next page and analyzing each side of the argument.

Step 1: Choose your article: 

• The attached document is the topic selected.

Step 2: Write a Critical Review of the article that you selected.

Use the critical thinking questions from the last two weeks to help you write your critical review.  

• What are the issue and the conclusion?

• What are the reasons?

• What words or phrases are ambiguous?

• Are their assumptions?

• Are there fallacies?

• How good is the evidence?

• Are there rival causes?

• Are the statistics deceptive?

• Is there any significant omitted information?

Step 3: Organize your work in MLA format.

• Begin your critical review of the “Pro” stance.  Then critically the “Con” stance.  Include a header to distinguish where each view begins and ends. 

• Include a Works Cited. 

 

Issue: Should the House of Representatives support the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 1998, in order to prevent the use of lethal drugs in physician-assisted suicide?

 

PRO:

What are the reasons?

We should not accept a policy like physician-assisted suicide, because it degrades the medical profession, cheapens life, poisons society, and is evil. Slavery is another such evil. Lethal drug use in physician-assisted suicide violates the Controlled Substances Act, which only allows controlled drugs for legitimate medical purposes. Coburn says physician-assisted suicide is not legitimate because it goes against the Hippocratic oath, which only considers those measures intended to protect life as legitimate. A confidential survey reveals that only a tiny fraction of those in the medical profession would cooperate in a physician-assisted suicide. Physician assisted suicide is not necessary because new advances in pain management mean patients need not suffer.

Which words or phrases are ambiguous?

In his reasoning, the phrase degrade the medical profession is probably intentionally ambiguous. It could refer to either slight degradation or a great deal, that is not made clear. Also, if physician-assisted suicide is accepted, what aspect of the medical profession would suffer: the quality of medical care, the trust of people in their doctors, or a doctors diminished work ethic, for example? All of these are radically different aspects of the medical profession, and a degradation of each would carry unique consequences.

What assumptions are there? 

For us to accept his reasoning fully, we would have to assume that many gravely ill patients would choose physician-assisted suicide if it were available. There are likely many more patients who would try to avoid death at any cost; our society seems to be deathly afraid of dying, as evidenced by numerous anti-aging and herbal supplement gimmicks.

Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?

By using words such as vulnerable and gravely ill, Coburn attempts to disguise his unsubstantiated reason with emotionally charged language. If one were to remove the emotional language, Coburns reason would be legalization of physician-assisted suicide will put pressure on ill patients to choose to eliminate themselves. This reason is fairly poor because it has no evidence to support it; the reason is simply a guess about what might occur in the future.

Second, comparing physician-assisted suicide to slavery is a faulty analogy due to some fundamental differences. For example, slavery was the long-term abuse of an entire race of people, while physician-assisted suicide is a single episode of abuse of one person. While both may be morally repugnant, slavery also bears more weight because of its broad belief base; nearly everyone at that time believed slavery was acceptable, while very few people today find physician-assisted suicide acceptable.

How good is the evidence?

The conclusions are also based on some extremely vague data. For example, exactly how many is a tiny fraction of respondents? Also, who administered this survey, where was it administered, how many respondents, was it a random sample or did they solicit volunteer respondents, what questions were on the survey and in what order, etc? These inquiries are all important because they would give us a clue as to how random the sample was, the breadth of the sample (were there many different fields of the medical profession represented, for example), and the size of the sample.

CON

Reason 1:

Kitzhaber argues that the bill is a direct usurpation of the states power in the area of medicine. Each state is permitted to make its own medicine-related laws through the use of its legislature, courts, and medical board. For example, Governor Kitzhaber argues that H.R. 4006 was proposed to undermine this decision that the people of Oregon made. 

Problems with his reasoning:

One problem with Kitzhabers argument is the assumption that the state should continue to be the arbiter of medical practice laws. The federal government has usurped the states right to regulate certain legal matters in the past for the sake of bettering the countryslavery being the most notable example. States at one point were permitted to choose if they were slave or free, but the determination by the federal government that slavery was undesirable overruled the states power to choose. If one feels that permitting the dispensing of lethal drugs is detrimental to our general population, one will disregard this reason. If one doesnt feel this usurpation of power is achieving a greater good, as it did in the case of slavery, one will accept the above reason.

This reasoning also avoids the heart of the issue. No doubt, issue of federalism is important. However, in this particular case, arguments that debate the physical advantages, physical disadvantages, moral issues, and freedom issues surrounding the bill are stronger arguments.

Reason 3:

Kitzhabers states that the bill only serves to threaten medical professionals who are attempting to alleviate the pain and suffering of terminally ill patients.

Problems with reasoning:

This argument is full of emotive language and ambiguities. Alleviate is highly ambiguous. Only after several re-readings of the article does it become clear that alleviate pain and suffering of terminally ill patients means end the lives of terminally ill patients, thereby ending their pain and suffering. One who believes that it isnt a humans job under any circumstances to end life intentionally will reject this reason. Further, Kitzhabers statement ignores the fact that medical professionals who are trying to alleviate pain and suffering but arent assisting their patient in suicide will have nothing to fear from this bill.

Works Cited

Coburn, Tom A. Should the House Approve H.R. 4006, the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 1998? Pro. Congressional Digest, vol. 77, no. 11, Nov. 1998, p. 266-270. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=1267950&site=ehost-live.

Kitzhaber, John A. Should the House Approve H.R. 4006, the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Actof 1998? Con. Congressional Digest, vol. 77, no. 11, Nov. 1998, 267-271. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=1267951&site=ehost-live.

Critical Review – 1st Draft

Start Assignment

• Due Sunday by 11:59pm

•  Points 15

• Submitting a text entry box, a website url, or a file upload

 

Write a critical review.

Recognize and explain the principles of critical thinking and formal argument.This activity is designed to support the following Learning Objectives:

Knowledge:

After finishing this assignment, you will understand:

• how to write a critical review

• how to organize an annotated bibliography

Skills:

After finishing this assignment, you will be able to:

• write a critical review/annotated bibliography

1. Write a 3-4 page critical review on your chosen issue. 

2. .  In your review, evaluate the claims of two opposing voices. Use the critical thinking questions to help you write your critical review. You do not need to include ALL of the questions in your essay.

• What are the issue and the conclusion?

• What are the reasons?

• What words or phrases are ambiguous?

• Are their assumptions?

• Are there fallacies?

• How good is the evidence?

• Are there rival causes?

• Are the statistics deceptive?

• Is there significant omitted information?

3. Organize your with a header for each position.  Use MLA formatting guidelines.

4. Check your style, vocabulary, sentence structure, mechanics and formatting:

• Is your style clear and smooth maintaining your voice throughout?

• Are your quotations smoothly blended into your review?

• Did you check for common errors? (splices, run-ons, fragments, missing commas, non-parallel structure)

• Did you follow MLA guidelines? (citations, margins, student/teacher name, class, date, centered title with title case, page numbers, double spacing, 12pt font, dangling indentation for works cited, etc.)

• Have you correctly documented each piece of evidence with in-text citation? 

• Have you included an MLA Works Cited page on its own page at the end of your document?

5. Submit your first draft here in a file by Sunday at 11:59PM. 

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