Euthanasia Ethical Issue

In fact, according to a recent poll almost 42% of surveyed supported euthanasia and 37% opposed (Fig 1). A lot of controversy surrounding this issue stems from the fact that euthanasia has been analyzed not only from juridical perspective, whether or not it should be legal, but also from various medical, social, philosophical, religious points of view. The topic seems to be extremely relevant not only because it is related to the basic principles of society regarding life and death, but also it affects every person, especially who suffers from a terminal illness. This study tries to indicate possible solutions for some questions related to euthanasia in order to show that in many cases euthanasia can be avoided by adequate treatment and that proper and clearly legislation is necessary to protect patients. For the purpose of this paper, euthanasia can be defined as “conduct that brings about an easy and painless death for persons suffering from an incurable or painful disease or condition” (Muckart, Gopalan, Hardcastle, Hodgson, & McQuoid-Mason, 2014, p. 259). Even though the issue of proper definition of euthanasia is still debatable, the question of classification of euthanasia seems to be less problematic. In fact, many scholars agree that euthanasia may be classified as voluntary (because of the will), non-voluntary (without specific will), involuntary (against the will) and divided according to active (use of lethal substances) and passive options (termination of treatment). Euthanasia differs also from assisted suicide. The former means to help someone to die, the latter means to help a person kill him or

Physician assisted suicide becoming legal will not make tons of people go out and use it. Haider Javed Warraich, a clinical researcher, defends this. His article “On Assisted Suicide, Going Beyond ‘Do No Harm’” argues how assisted suicide can be a solution for terminally ill patients who continue to lose control over their lives. Warraich analyzes how barely 35 percent of those who request the medication actually follow through with it.

Physician assisted suicide consists of a doctor intentionally providing a patient with the means to commit suicide. It continues to be a controversial issue that is facing our state’s legislatures and is presently legal in only four states including Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and just recently, California. Anna Gorman, an author for Kaiser Health News, published an article in USA Today titled “Disabled Right Advocates Fight Assisted Suicide Legislation.” Gorman’s article explains the dangers of a proposed legislation in California that would legalize prescriptions for terminally ill patients to end their lives. The bill was passed and will be effective for ten years. In her article, Gorman interviews four people who believe that physician

Schencker in the article, demonstrates that patient assisted suicide has opened a discussion for more options regarding palliative and hospice care. She stated that although PAS is heart wrenching and emotion provoking, palliative and hospice care is a growing concern in the United States. Palliative care is the means where health care providers strive to improve the quality of life of their patients, and alleviate their patients from suffering during the end of life stages. Since pain is self-subjective, PAS allows patients to determine when their quality of life has been diminished and intolerable, and living is no longer an option. Furthermore, Schencker mentions Brittany Maynard, a young woman who moved to Oregon after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and opted to end her life through PAS. Maynard met the criteria to receive a lethal prescription to end her life as she did in November in 2014. Before ending her life, she became an activist for death with dignity by working with advocacy groups, blogging and making videos explaining her reason for seeking death with dignity. In addition, Brittany Maynard’s advocacy work led 20 states to introduce legislations that challenge laws opposing PAS (Schencker, 2015). However, moral ambiguity is not the only obstacle in passing laws regarding PAS. Under

All around the world, most specifically the U.S., Assisted Suicide has been debated by courts, people and physicians. It’s one of the most prominent topics among the states. The statistics state that 68% of Americans think that doctors should be allowed to assist terminally ill patients in death. (Dugan 1)

The ethical debate on non-voluntary euthanasia is a complex issue due to its multifaceted nature. This topic examines the morality of ending a human’s life in circumstances where the person is incapable of issuing explicit consent. These cases would include utilizing euthanasia on very young children or someone in a vegetative state. There lacks consent with young children since they cannot speak to provide consent. Explicit consent is lacking with someone in a vegetative state since they are incapable of deciding at that moment to continue living or end their life.

The controversy of a doctor assisting their patient who is already dying, end their life sooner to save them from continuous unnecessary pain and agony has been the topic of controversy for years. The practice of euthanasia is in my opinion a mercy and should not be banned because in reality it doesn’t physically hurt anyone. You could say it hurts the patient but then again that patient is already in tremendous pain or in an incapacitated state of no recovery, as in paralyzed or brain damage etc., so in reality it would actually help them by assisting ending their pain by assisted suicide. A doctors job is also always help their patients and the practice of assisted suicide in many ways is actually helping the person. However there has and probably always will be people who do not agree with the idea of a dying person end their life for sooner than nature had intended. This demographic would suggest that by dying by your own hand or assisted by a physician for medical reasons is still considered plain suicide. And for the religious people it is a sin by their beliefs. The people could also argue that it is not a person’s right to make that decision.

As patients come closer to the end of their lives, certain organs stop performing as well as they use to. People are unable to do simple tasks like putting on clothes, going to the restroom without assistance, eat on our own, and sometimes even breathe without the help of a machine. Needing to depend on someone for everything suddenly brings feelings of helplessness much like an infant feels. It is easy to see why some patients with terminal illnesses would seek any type of relief from this hardship, even if that relief is suicide. Euthanasia or assisted suicide is where a physician would give a patient an aid in dying. “Assisted suicide is a controversial medical and ethical issue based on the question of whether, in certain situations,

Doctor assisted suicide is a topic that has recently become a much larger debated issue than before. A timeline put together by Michael Manning and Ian Dowbigging shows that prior to Christianity, doctor assisted suicide was something that was tolerated, and was not heavily questioned (2). Yet, in the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas had made a statement about suicide as well as doctor assisted suicide, and his words shaped the Catholic teaching on suicide into what they teach today. Beginning in the 17th century, Common Law tradition frowned upon suicide, as well as assisting in suicide, and the colonies had adopted the Common Law principles. (2) In 1828, New York passed a law completely outlawing the assistance of suicide, and made it to where whomever assisted in the suicide could be tried for murder. In 1976, California became the first state to allow patients to withdrawal themselves from life saving medicines, and this Natural Death Act was seen as a gateway to assisted suicide. (3-7) As controversy about California 's Natural Death Act increased, Pope John Paul II released a statement in 1980 which opposed to killing someone out of mercy, but allowed the increased use of painkillers (8). Although, in 1994 Oregon passed their Death with Dignity act, and with it came incredible amounts of backlash. Yet, in 2008 Washington state passed the same act to legalize doctor assisted suicide. (10-12)

In recent years, the number of countries legalizing or considering legalizing doctor-assisted suicide continues to increase notably. While some countries have decriminalized the controversial act of assisted suicide, in many places it remains illegal. Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and certain parts of the United States are the only places where, under different terms, doctors are legally allowed to assist patients who qualify and express a desire to, to end their life due to medical reasons. Though globally the idea of assisted suicide is becoming less taboo, very few countries have taken steps to decriminalize it. For various reasons, such as culture and religion, many see assisted suicide as unethical because they believe that no one has the right to say when someone should die. In addition, those opposed also believe the option of assisted suicide will result in the exploitation of the health care system, from patients feeling pressured to opt for assisted suicide, to the opportunity for doctors to malpractice. However, those who support assisted suicide believe that if a patient decides they want to end their life they have every right to do so. Others agree with government regulation and additional controls to ensure assisted suicide remains humane to enable it to be the correct choice for those suffering. In the limited number of countries which have chosen to legalize

The ethical issue is Euthanasia, there are many groups that support or oppose this issue. Euthanasia is the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. The different viewpoints are based around whether it is humane to assist someone in dying and whether it should be illegal for someone to assist the death of someone who has a terminal illness and are suffering incurable pain. Groups that oppose the issue generally believe that it is inhumane to end someone 's life early, these groups generally believe these people should be given care and as much comfort as possible until their last days. Groups that support the issue generally believe that if someone has lost their mental state or are suffering unbearable pain that cannot be cured, that they should be allowed the option of euthanasia because it is inhumane to make someone suffer unbearable pain if they do not need to. An ethical issue brings systems of morality and principles into conflict, ethical issues are more subjective and opinionated and generally cannot be solved with facts, laws and truth. Euthanasia is an ethical issue because there are two equally unacceptable options. It is considered wrong

78% of 3,251 requests for euthanasia were from patients with cancer in the year 2012. It depends in what countries you are in some consider euthanasia the same as assisted suicide, but others would say differently. It also depends on the case and what happened in it. Euthanasia is known of a painless way of ending someone’s life. Euthanasia case is growing more and more. Euthanasia is wrong it isn’t a natural death and individual still have time to live, why cut their life short.

Euthanasia is the practice of ending a person’s life intentionally in order to relieve pain and suffering. Every country has different euthanasia laws. Euthanasia itself is categorized in different ways, which include voluntary, non-voluntary, or involuntary. Voluntary euthanasia is the only category that is legal in a few countries. The act of ending one’s life, even through a voluntary act, is morally wrong and should not become legal in the US. It is ultimately an act of murder. This issue is important due to the fact that the lives of many suffering people will be on the line. If this law were to become legal, rather than giving freedom to the suffering patients, euthanasia and assisted suicide will ultimately give other people the legal power to end another person’s life.

Is it right to intentionally bring about the death of a person? The vast majority of people would instinctively answer this question “no,” unless it related to an act of war or perhaps self-defense. What if taking the life of the person would benefit that person by ending their suffering? Would it be morally acceptable to end their suffering? Questions like these are debated by those considering the morality of euthanasia, which is a very controversial topics in America. Euthanasia can be defined as “bringing about the death of another person to somehow benefit that person” (Pojman). The term implies that the death is intentional. Because there are several different types of euthanasia, it is difficult to make a blanket statement

A teacher I once had in high school would often talk about her father who lived in hospice care. Her father suffered from dementia and had been for years. She would often talk about how on his “good” days he would plead her husband to put a pillow on his head and suffocate him, to take him out of his misery. If it was legal, her husband would have willingly helped her father and put him out of his misery, however in the state of North Carolina, physician-assisted suicide is illegal. Luckily, her father passed away this year and is finally free of pain and suffering. However, if physician-assisted suicide was legal, her father would not have had to suffer as long as he did.