Nazi Euthanasia Research Paper

Lane talks about how euthanasia of mentally impaired patients is controversial. He provides the reader with descriptive details of a physician-suicide that occurred in the Netherlands in 2016. Lane describes the physician-assisted death of a 74-year-old woman that had dementia. The women did not provide a clear explanation of why she was wanting to have a lethal injection other than she was suffering from an uncurbable disease. The doctor sedated the elderly woman and she pulled back from the needle as the doctor was trying to locate a vein.

Euthanasia got its modern connotation beginning in the late nineteenth century (Dowbiggin 1). The Great Depression caused a major spike in discussion concerning suicide and controlled dying (Dowbiggin 33). Suicide rates rose about four percent at the beginning of the Great Depression, but slowly began to decrease across the entire decade. Several important figures killed themselves, which alerted several people to the need to talk about suicide and methods people killed themselves (Dowbiggin 34). Voluminous topics of euthanasia lead towards a conversation about Hitler, and the way he sterilized and euthanized people, bringing the negative connotation into the discussion (Singer 201). What some fail to see is that in the medical community, the

The chapter on Nazi medical experiments in Chalmers’ book is one of the most fascinating chapters because it examines the different types of techniques that the Nazi’s used to sterilize men and women. Chalmers explains that women were particularly subject to medical experiments because the Nazis were obsessed with destroying inferior races and wanted to perfect the art of sterilization so no more undesirable elements would be born (Ibid 123). However, both men and women were subject to Nazi medical experiments like medical injections, X-Rays, and chemicals, which resulted in burnt skin, abnormalities, and death. Among these experimentations many chemical companies, doctors, and University professors supported the experiments being done on

To better understand physician-assisted suicide, it is important to consider its history in our society. Euthanasia can be traced back to the Ancient Greeks, however by the thirteenth century Christians, as well as Jews, opposed the practice due to religious beliefs. The earliest United States law prohibiting assisted suicide was passed in New York in 1828. During World War II, Hitler organized mercy killing of the sick or disabled; often referred to as, "Aktion T4" this program was enacted for disabled children under the age of three. A Catholic Bishop called the practice of Euthanasia murder; as a result Hitler publicly ended the program, despite it continuing in private. Instead of using euthanasia by way of gas chambers, the use of drugs and/or starvation became the new way to euthanize citizens without causing attention to themselves. (The History Place 1997) The majoring of United States citizens were against the practice for the main reason being religion; however, looking ahead to the year 1972, euthanasia became a more widely accepted act, "The US Senate Special Commission on Aging (SCA) holds the first national hearing on death with dignity entitled “Death with Dignity: An inquiry into Related Public Issues.” The national hearing showed that Americans were becoming more accepting of the act of assisted suicide, yet less accepting of expecting a miracle while witnessing the suffering of loved ones. (Samuelson)

In “Active and Passive Euthanasia”, James Rachels argues that both degrees of euthanasia are morally permissible and the American Medical Association (AMA) policy that supports the conventional doctrine is not sound. Rachels establishes that the conventional doctrine is the belief that, in some cases, passive euthanasia is morally permitted, while active euthanasia, under all circumstances, is

At the beginning of the fall of 1939, Nazi officials selected around 70,000 Germans institutionalized for mental illness or disabilities to be gassed to death in the so-called Euthanasia program. After prominent German religious leader protest, Hitler put an end to the program in August 1941. By the spring of 1945, German leadership was dissolving amid internal dissent, with Goering and Himmler both Hitler and take power.

The Nazi Party wanted to get rid of all who were not healthy enough to work. Contrary to this fear, there are important “safeguards” to prevent anything like the holocaust from happening with euthanasia or physician assisted suicide (Brock 59). According to a survey done by the Louis Finklestein Institute for social and Religious Research and HCD in February of 2007, fifty-four percent of the doctors who participated believe the government should not control or regulate physician-assisted suicide (Friedman 35). It should be a matter between the patient and his or her medical practitioner. Also, those who oppose euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide may also fear those who are physically or mentally disabled may one day be grouped with those who are terminally ill (Friedman 62). This would not be a problem. Oregon's Death with Dignity Act has a safeguard―the patient must have a predicted lifespan of only 6 months to live to even qualify for being eligible to partake in using this act (Friedman 59). This safeguard is in place so neither the doctor nor the patient can falsely apply. Additionally, euthanasia for terminally ill children is still “morally repugnant” in many of the European countries today. This hatred for the euthanasia of children stems from the Nazis, who killed thousands of

In 1939, Adolf Hitler Authorized a medical administered program of “mercy death” was the code name for Operation T4. This program gave physicians full control over their patients and they would judged whether their patients were considered “incurable”. Institutions such as schools for the deaf and even teachers of the deaf students would turn in deaf members to the German community, they would then force sterilization and also some would be part of medical experiments. Children that were born with any kind of disability were killed by starvation or even lethal

Action T4 was the postwar designation of for a programme of forced euthanasia in wartime nazi germany. The name T4 is an abbreviation of Tiergartenstrasse 4 which is the address for chancellery department, set up in spring 1940. Under the program German physicist were to sign off patients as “incurably sick by critical medical examination’’ therefore allowing them to administer them a “mercy death” this was done through drugs, starvation, lethal injections and gas chambers.

Psychiatric patients in the 1930s were treated inhumanely. The treatment that the doctors believed would help the mentally impaired people, were things such as; electric shock therapy, hydrotherapy

From cloning to genetically modified food to designer babies, humans have long been known to interfere with the way nature does things; humans have been modifying genes and improving the outlook in the pretext that it improves the quality of our lives. Humans also have a long history of interfering with and trying to control the more divine

On the first of September, 1939 World War II began. Hitler is in power of Nazi Germany and is wanting to cleanse the German people of racially unsound elements. He enacts a program that will aim to eliminate the so called “lives unworthy of life” called the T4 program (History Place). Over the next six years throughout Germany, many people are experimenting with and euthanized to help Nazi Germany reach a “pure” state. Was this program that was enacted ethical and what has happened since then to stop something like this from happening again? What kind of medical advances and data did we achieve from it and is it ethical today to use what they learned in today’s medical trials?

   Euthanasia or assisted suicide would not only be available to people who are terminally ill. This popular misconception is what this essay seeks to correct. There is considerable confusion on this point, perhaps further complicated by statements in the media.

Euthanasia debate opposes two sides in which one side argues that letting someone suffer is not ethical and the other side defend that to help someone to die is not ethical based on the morality that no one should kill or help someone to die (fundamental right that everyone is allowed to live), they judge that euthanasia should compromise the criminal code. For my own morality, I am for the euthanasia possibility for the people in need to die for the reason of the person’s well-being.

This is why Euthanasia is important and summarizing the research that I found on Euthanasia. Euthanasia is important because there is a lot of arguments about Euthanasia. Some people support it and some people do not support Euthanasia (Euthanasia and assisted suicide- Arguments). Euthanasia allows people to be free from physical pain. It is the hastening of death of a patient to prevent further sufferings (Euthanasia Revisited). The religious argument states God chooses when human life ends. Euthanasia also causes mental suffering because they are in physical pain or they are experiencing with terminal illness. It is a debatable issue. There are many different opinions on Euthanasia.