The Euthanasia Debate

Terminally illness is any disease that curtails life even for a day. Once euthanasia is socially acceptable and legalised it would widen the practice to any medical condition, not just for terminal illness, we will consider euthanasia as a treatment option. Dr Gunning states: ‘once you accept killing as a solution for a single problem, you will find tomorrow hundreds of problems for which killing can be seen as a solution.’ Dutch doctors have been killing terminally ill, to killing chronically ill, killing physical disease to killing mentally distressed, who has no physical illness, to killing newborn babies just because they have birth defects. The experience of Netherlands and Belgium in legalising, points the fact that once legalised it cannot be effectively controlled.

Furthermore, euthanasia is a disgrace to humanity. An individual person or group shouldn’t decide how, when, and if another person should die. The act of ending someone’s life just because another decided that the individual’s life gives no worth to the person or to society is unjust. That is simply the person’s opinion, and their opinion shouldn’t end a precious human life. Usually, people with disabilities who request euthanasia, do so because of how others treat them, not because of their actual disability. If we were to respect those with disabilities, that would remove hardships, not death. Another reason why euthanasia is wrong is that a person who can’t think straight or is a human vegetable, a person who does not have mental or physical abilities (O’Steen). She/he can be killed by a guardian’s request according to law, even if the patient never showed a desire to die. The Declaration of Independence states our rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and euthanasia goes against that. If the right to live is reduced, all over rights are worthless (“Euthanasia Statement”).

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 advances of medical researched have progressed and improved significantly over the last century. At this rate, most of the terminal diseases which exist now will be treatable and the use of euthanasia would no longer be required. Euthanasia undermines medical research and more jobs in the area of this industry could be better used in the development of saving people’s lives rather than help ending them.

If a child is born with a horrible disease and the only way to survive is to have an operation, which will in a sense allow the child to live, but under poor conditions, the parents have a difficult decision to make. It might be very easy to think about themselves and how raising this child would perhaps be a burden to them or a burden to society. Once again in order for euthanasia to be morally permissible they have to make to decision based on what is good for the child. This is where another crucial point comes into play. Who is to say that even though this child will grow up with severe abnormalities and discomfort that they won't find happiness? "There are many fairly severely handicapped people for whom a simple affectionate life is possible." (Foot, p.795) As you can see, the decision of ending a person's life is a very delicate and hard decision. It is however, a decision we are only allowed to make if it is passive euthanasia being considered. As of right now, active euthanasia is not permissible. We now need to discuss what would happen if active euthanasia were permissible.

Francis Bacon once said, “I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.” In other words, people are not afraid to die. Rather, they are afraid of the way in which they are going to die. Today, four centuries of medical progress later, Bacon’s words are truer than ever. Medical advances have allowed physicians to prolong the lives of their patients, or maybe it would be better to say, to prolong their deaths. People are made to live too long in ways they would not choose: dependent upon machines, lying in comas, and suffering unbearable pain. Bacon’s “stroke of death” has become the “stretch of death,” giving people all that much more to fear.

The majority of people in the United States, strongly believe that Physician assisted suicide, also known as PAS, should be legal. PAS is when the doctor is the one who assists, such as prescribing a lethal dose of medication (Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide). This topic has become an intense controversy in our country. About 33% of the country's population believe Physician Assisted-Suicide should be legal. The people should have right to end their life if they need to.

Of course, there are a number of people who whole-heartedly support PAS. For instance, there is an organization called the Final Exit Network. This American association offers counseling, support, and guidance in a successful suicide to individuals who are suffering from an intolerable

Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is a heavily debated topic; people have very strong opinions about whether or not people should have to right to die. People taking their own lives is something quite frowned upon in our society, usually those who commit suicide are depressed and need to seek help; people see this a simply being weak, taking the “coward’s way out.” Those who would benefit from PAS would be people with terminal illnesses who have no hope of getting better.

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.

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

Margaret P. Battin’s “Euthanasia: The Way We Do It, the Way They Do It” discusses the occurrence and practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide in three first-world, industrialized, developed nations: The Netherlands, Germany, and the United States. All three of these countries have one important factor in common that makes them ideal for studying euthanasia: aging populations who primarily die of degenerative diseases, rather than parasitic or infectious diseases (Battin 579). In the United States, outright euthanasia is illegal. Rather, the accepted form of

PAS is defined as a doctor intentionally helping a person to commit suicide by providing drugs for self-administration, at that person’s voluntary and competent request (Charles-Henri, et al, 98). The difference between the two is that euthanasia is death caused directly by the doctor whereas PAS is suicide performed by the person through their prescribed medication for doing so. These definitions first originated with the EAPC and then were later developed by the World Health Organization (Charles-Henri, et al 97). When a person has the full knowledge of these particular parts of health care, they are able to form a clearer and more fact based opinion. The EAPC performed their study for that very reason; they wanted to be able to clarify the position to which they would adopt towards euthanasia and its legalization (Charles-Henri).

Euthanasia is defined as, "The act or practice of putting to death painlessly a person suffering from an incurable disease." Euthanasia can be traced back as far back as the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. It was sometimes allowed in these civilizations to help others die. Voluntary euthanasia was approved in these ancient societies. Today, the practice of euthanasia causes great controversy. Both pro-life groups and right-to-die groups present arguments for their different sides. Pro-life groups make arguments and present fears against euthanasia. I contend that the case for the right to die is the stronger argument.

In current times we have made many technological advances that have boosted the medical productivity in hospitals. However, the rapid development of medicine is far from being a long term resolve for many health issues. We have a plethora of people whose quality of life is very low and has no chance of improving. During these situations allowing the person to end their life via euthanasia should be allowed. I will argue that Euthanasia is morally permissible in some cases because there are several moral justifications that argue for ending one’s life.