The Principle of Palliative Care
Employing palliative care is one of the more agonizing decisions caretakers need to make for seriously ill patients. When there is little or no hope for a cure, pain relief medication is used simply to make the patient as comfortable as possible. If utilizing these potent drugs, sometimes in high doses, may hasten the patient’s death, are they halachically permissible?
Pain is considered an illness in halachah. Healing pain is endorsed to the same degree as any other treatment that presents some form of danger to the patient’s life. In addition, there is a concept of tiruf hadaas (acute mental anguish), which also poses a threat to the patient’s safety. The ability of palliative treatment to remove the burden of pain from the patient’s psyche outweighs the possible risk presented by the painkillers.
(It should be noted that the effects of palliative care have been studied, and the prevailing medical opinion is that with optimal medical oversight and dosage, it does not negatively affect life expectancy, but may actually increase it.)