comparison: Martin Luther King Jr.'s essay and Brent Staples' essay
...ltural backgrounds. In other words, if physicians have some drivingly forceful reasons to think that truth-telling could cause harm, it may be justified to appropriately tell a lie. On some occasions, to tell the truth to patients will cause more harm than it will cause to lie. Due to human beings have always found it difficult to face the prospect of dying, even though over 90% of patients surveyed “want to be told the truth” (Bok 93), most dying patients today still cannot calmly accept the brutal truth and appropriately make an autonomous decision. In clinical practice, many physicians have realized that the truth may help patients deal with their sickness, and patients absolutely have a right to be told the true information( Bok 492). However, in some cases, such as terminal cancer patients, truth telling could probably kill their will and destroy their hope for living and even cause suicide. After all, those who have an incurable disease, but still can composedly accept the truth and optimistically face it, obviously are in the minority. By contraries, appropriately telling a lie to these patients may mitigate harmful effects of disclosing the truth and make them enjoy their last hours in life. Actually, there are no rigid rules about telling the truth or lying to patients, but professional and experienced judgments appear more crucial and needful for physicians. When physicians have compelling evidence that truth-telling seems very likely to harm patients, no doubt, lying could be considered as the best decision. In fact, many dying and cancer patients and their families often ask physicians to withhold the truth; under this circumstance, most physicians appear to respect the choices of patients and their families. Joseph Collins, in his article “Should Doctors Tell The Truth?” states that “those who do not want to know “[truth]”, and who if they were told would be injured by “[truth]”, and who are wholly incapable of receiving truth” absolutely have a right to make their own decision (80). Moreover, due to the fact that individuals’ competence are quite different, especially for some dying and cancer patients, they know what are best for them---they would rather choose to be told a lie but can continue enjoying the last hours in life than choose to be told the truth that is very likely to destroy their few living days (Collins 83). On the other hand, some families ask the physicians to withhold the truth because they worry about the potential of that truthful disclosure may create predictable harm that could probably destroy the happy time to be with their dying family members in last days. Obviously, considering the patient’s worries and the family’s commendable motives, on this occasion, the best choice for physicians is to follow a moral rule to withhold the truth----tell a white lie. To understand the fact of that patient with diverse religious beliefs or cultural backgrounds may have different attitude to the appropriateness of truth-telling, it is quite apparent that due to this reason, physicians can be allowed to withhold the truth to patients. In the United States, ...