Euthanasi A Good Death

“Is it worse to kill someone than to let someone die?” – James Rachels. At the end of the disagreement, many philosophers say euthanasia, also known as physician-assisted suicide, is a compassionate method of death. At the other side are the opponents of euthanasia, who may consider this technique as a form of murder. In this paper, I will show that it is not important to know the distinction between killing and letting die on request which is performed by a physician. Both killing and letting die on request are similar because it is based on the controversial issue called euthanasia also known as physician-assisted suicide.

Euthanasia is the practice of purposefully ending someone’s life in order to relieve their pain and/or suffering. Euthanasia is legal in many countries including Belgium, France, India, Japan, and few states

Physician-assisted suicide is a controversial subject all around the world. Although it is legal in some countries and states, such as the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Oregon, Montana, Washington, and Vermont it is not yet legal in most (Finlay, 2011). People travel from all around the world to these locations to receive information. Physician-assisted suicide is when terminally ill and mentally capable patients perform the final act themselves after being provided with the required means and information. The elemental causes found for physician-assisted suicide include: terminal cancer, mental and behavioral disorders, diseases of the nervous system, disease of the circulatory system, and diseases of the musculoskeletal system

When faced with a terminal illness or severe depression people look for a way out. Rather than let these people some European countries and a few states have legalized the use of euthanasia, or assisted suicide. Euthanasia is a procedure that medical officials follow, where they pump the ailing patient full of drugs that firsts put them into a coma and then they die peacefully. Patients in these select countries and states that are beyond helping or severely depressed utilize the euthanasia as either a means to an end or a way to die on their terms.

The Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland are among the jurisdictions where assisted suicide is legal. Canada is now looking at ways to decriminalize physician-assisted suicide. The Canadian Nurses Protective Society recently published an article regarding the matter. In Quebec, legislation was passed that could classify physician-assisted suicide as part of the “continuum of care” in that province (Nurse, 2015). As a result, lawmakers have set criteria for those seeing PAS, and essentially deemed is a medical procedure opposed to criminalizing the act of ending one’s life. Although this is not in effect in Quebec, it is still illegal under federal law. Therefore bills have been introduced to change the criminal code on assisted suicide and establish a way to monitor the system and review statistics on assisted suicide (Nurse,

Legal Aspects: Euthanasia is illegal in most countries, although doctors do sometimes carry out euthanasia even where it is illegal. Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium, are the only three countries in the world that have legalized euthanasia. Both countries Netherlands and Luxembourg laws also allow PSA or physician assisted suicide. In the United States, the states of Oregon, Washington and Montana legalized physician assisted suicide, but euthanasia remains illegal.

Many legal, ethical and personal issues and dilemmas have been identified in relation to physician- assisted suicide and euthanasia. Issues such as whether physician- assisted suicide or euthanasia is ethically acceptable, or what criterion is legally and socially necessary to determine whether a person can receive assisted suicide measures to end ones life. A variety of literature reviews have been created to address this topic and generate knowledge and information for health care professionals. With this in mind, there are many phrases associated and utilized synonymously with the term physician- assisted suicide that need to be addressed such as physician- assisted death, euthanasia, and aid in dying, however each has been defined separately throughout the literature. Westefeld et al., (2013) and Landry, Foreman and Kekewich (2015) define physician- assisted death as voluntary termination of life through the administration, from the person requesting termination, of a lethal dose to end ones life. The Canadian Medical Association (2014) refers to euthanasia as “the practice of knowingly and intentionally performing an act with or without consent, that is explicitly intended to end another person life” (p. 2) by a physician. Lastly, aid is dying is the request of a prescription for medication; provided by a physician, that patients can self-administer to end ones life peacefully (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2013). For

End of life care is a prevailing issue in the United States that affects the terminally ill. It includes physician-assisted suicide, which is legal in five states and the practice of euthanasia which is illegal. (Barone, 2014). Delving deeper into the issue of end of life care reveals that this issue affects far more than the patient that is suffering. It raises the question of whether or not it is acceptable to reject the request of a person based solely on the socio-religious values of protecting life and ignoring the moral responsibility of ending the misery of another person even when they explicitly ask to end their suffering. Terminally ill, elderly, or disabled patients that are aware of the physical and mental deterioration caused

It isn’t right to keep a person, or more importantly a loved one alive, if they are suffering! So, you should really start to think about a better way for your family or the people of the world to be able to die if they have been told there is no longer any hope for them to get better. People who have terminal diseases like cancer, kidney disease, or other incurable sickness should have the right to die by euthanasia. Euthanasia is defined as the “right to die” by either a doctor or a lethal prescription. Some even call this an assisted suicide. The three arguments I have with this topic is: Keeping a person you love kept alive longer if they are suffering so badly is cruel. The next one is, keeping a person who has no hope

Euthanasia is the practice of intentionally ending a patient’s life, who has an incurable illness, in order to relieve the pain and the suffering. The euthanasia vocabulary originates from the Greek’s word “Euthanatos” which means “easy death” (Australia Human Rights Commission [AHRC], 2016, p.1). In 1995, Northern Territory introduced Australia as the first country where euthanasia became legal, albeit just for two years (Parliament of Australia [APH], 1995-97). While euthanasia still remains illegal in Australia and in most countries, some nations have adopted assisted suicide laws such as Canada, Colombia, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and in the US states of Washington, Oregon, Colorado,

Euthanasia refers to the intentional act of ending one’s life to remove intractable pain and suffering to the patient. It is also known as physician- assisted suicide (Argument For Euthanasia - Advantages and disadvantages.). Euthanasia can be classified as voluntary where the patient gives consent to have their life ended, non-voluntary, where the patient is not in a position to make the decision on themselves, but a close relative takes the initiative to make the decision. It can also be involuntary where the decision to end life is made without the expressed wishes of the patient (Jecker, Jonsen, and Pearlman).In most countries, euthanasia is considered illegal and is viewed as murder. There are mixed feelings worldwide towards

In the year 2017 human euthanasia, also known, as assisted suicide is legal in a variety of countries around the world such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, Canada, and a handful of states in the USA. Euthanasia is illegal in Australia but was legal in the Northern Territory for a short period of time. It is not a crime for a person to take his or her own life, A patient can choose to not receive any treatment for a terminal illness and can also request to have their life support turned off. But In Australia, and the many other countries where assisted suicide is not yet legalised individuals who are living with the daily torment of a terminal illness do not have the option to peacefully and painlessly end their lives of discomfort.

Physician-assisted suicide is defined as “a physician intentionally helping a person to terminate his or her life by providing drugs for self-administration, at that person’s voluntary and competent request” (Radbruch et al. 109). There is a large controversy over whether or not a patient should be allowed to request and perform physician-assisted suicide; doctors and patients alike have mixed feelings on the issue. The first democratic nation to recognize the legality of physician-assisted suicide was Australia. They enacted a law that described certain conditions where the act was legal in the Rights of the Terminally Ill Amendment Act in 1996.

The Supreme Court declared that it was illegal for physicians to perform assisted suicide and it claimed that such cases should be left to individual states (Sjöstrand et al.). Oregon has had a law permitting assisted suicide since 1997. Other nations around the world have gone on to decriminalize the act. These countries include Australia, Britain, Switzerland and Netherlands. It is believed that euthanasia should not be practiced since it is not in line with medical

The term Euthanasia is derived from the Greek words, Eu (good) and Thanatosis (death) meaning a very gentle and easy death. The definition of euthanasia has now come down to “the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy.” Therefore, this term can be also called “mercy killing”. In this sense euthanasia means the active or inactive death of a patient. This form of “easy death” for hopeless and suffering patients has been around since ancient ages as, Mesopotamia strictly forbade euthanasia following the sixth commandment “thou shall not kill”, India practiced it by drowning incurable patients in the Ganges