Euthanasia: The Right to Die Essay

Active euthanasia should be permitted as a medical treatment to allow people the right to die with dignity without pain and in peace. Euthanasia, also known as assisted suicide or mercy killing, takes on many different forms. When most Americans think of euthanasia, they think of a specific form that is referred to as “active euthanasia” which means to actively do something that will end a patient’s life with or without that individual’s consent. When euthanasia is performed in an involuntary manner it is usually because the patient is comatose, unconscious, or otherwise unable to communicate whether or not they want to have their life prolonged through artificial means. In such cases, the physician makes an

Euthanasia, also appropriately called ‘Mercy Killing’, when used appropriately can be the best option for a terminally ill patient, their families and for the doctor who administers the lethal overdose. But some individuals have taken it upon themselves to overlook the act of humanity and mercy aimed to preserve the dignity and comfort of the terminally, and instead, force these poor people endure Hell on Earth every prolonged, painful and pitiful day.

Passive Euthanasia is the discontinuation of life-sustaining medical procedures by the attending physician, thereby allowing the patient to die without intervention from the lack of medical treatment. This is commonly known as "Pulling the Plug". Physician Assisted Suicide is the act of the physician providing the patient with the means and knowledge to perform life-ending acts, but allowing the patient to carry out the lethal act alone, at his or her own discretion. If a doctor provides a terminally ill patient with a large quantity of morphine, but leaves the patient with the option of if and when to take a lethal dosage, this is considered physician assisted suicide.

March 31, 1976 was the day the New Jersey Supreme Court gave the parents of Kathleen Quinland, a young comatose woman, permission to take her off of life support systems. This is the day which is believed to be the birth of the modern right-to-die movement. Euthanasia, commonly known as mercy killing, is a way to end the agony of those who are suffering from terminal illnesses and should be legalized instead of having to be preformed in secrecy.

Dr. Kevorkian is a physician in Michigan. He is a well-known physician, although to some, he is known for the wrong reasons. He is known to most for assisting in the suicide of those who ask for help in their deaths. He has assisted in the suicide of over 140 people. This essay will discuss the financial benefits of allowing physician assisted suicide and euthanasia, doctors’ opinions on euthanasia, the consequences of Dr. Kevorkian’s actions, and why assisted suicide is the right choice for terminally ill people. Euthanasia is the patients’ choice and should be made legal in the United States and Dr. Kevorkian should not be sent to prison.

Euthanasia can be seen in many different ways. Some may see it as ethical while others do not. Ethical standpoints argue that it is the means that matter. A major argument for euthanasia is autonomy. Autonomy make their own decisions for their life, which can somewhat been seen as the theory of egoism. Since many people do believe in autonomy, they also believe that they should have a choice on how their life ends. It is even said that people have a “right to good death” (BBC, n.d.). It can be argued that the individual isn’t choosing the way they die, but the physician does. In Michael Manning MD’s article Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide: Killing or Caring? it is stated, “the choice rests fully with the patient”(1998).

Euthanasia is the process of purposely ending a life of an individual in order to ease the pain and suffering (Healey, 2013, p. 1). There are three different types of euthanasia including voluntary, involuntary, and non-voluntary. Voluntary euthanasia is performed with a patient’s formal consent. Involuntary is preformed without a patient’s consent. Non-voluntary is preformed when a patient is unable to give consent. Voluntary euthanasia can be either active or passive. It is described that active euthanasia is known as letting a patient die and passive euthanasia is know as killing a patient. Voluntary active euthanasia is always morally impermissible. The debate is that there is no difference in the morality of discontinuing life-sustaining

have a peaceful and painless goodbye, it is not always the way it happens. Once diagnosed with a

This paper tries to set the issue of voluntary euthanasia in a philosophical framework by showing how some of the main philosophical theories about morality would deal with the topic. Philosophers have not discussed euthanasia as such until recently, although it is now a popular topic. What has always been discussed, however, is suicide, which raises much the same moral problems as voluntary euthanasia. The moral similarity between voluntary euthanasia and suicide enables us to make a reasonable guess about what some of the great philosophers would say about

The term ‘euthanasia’, also known as assisted suicide or mercy killing, refers to a controversial practice of accelerating the death of a terminally or incurably ill patient in order to alleviate their suffering. This act has been known since the beginning of the 20th century but only over the last decade has it become one of the most talked about aspects of bioethics. Due to the fact that the debate about assisted suicide is a highly emotional one, it is only natural that the practice has both its supporters and critics.

The Romans' had a philosophy about dying that essentially meant that if you live, then you deserved to die. This philosophy has been incorporated into the “right to die”. There have been laws and court rulings that support this ideal of having the right to die. This right entitles the patient to refuse any further medical treatment that would just stymie an inevitable death. This allows the patient to experience a natural death. The supporting viewpoint on the matter of physician assisted suicide argues that the right to die, a right supported by laws and courts, also allows a patient to request a death assisted by their physician. They argue that the two, euthanasia and the right to die, are very similar. Meaning, assisted suicide should be supported as much as having a right to die.

The history of euthanasia and assisted suicide starts from Ancient Greek, physicians used to perform frequent abortions, voluntary and involuntary mercy killings. People supported voluntary death and physicians often gave their patients the poisons on their request. The ancients supported the voluntary killing, if it was done for the right reasons. For centuries physician-assisted suicide had been understood to mean the process where the relief of pain for the dying was the best way to ensure an “easy death”. By the nineteenth century euthanasia was then described as actual mercy killing. It is a controversy today whether or not euthanasia is inhumane or not.

The term “euthanasia” is derived from Greek, and means “Good death.” It is a broad term for mercy killing, which is a plea to euthanasia. It represents a serious socio-legal debate. People do not always die well. Some afflictions cause people to suffer extreme physical pain in their last days, and euthanasia may seem a compassionate way to end the pain. The case of Karen Ann Quinlan set a precedent for patient’s right to refuse unwanted medical treatment. However, the credit of bringing euthanasia to the public goes to Jack Kevorkian.

Advances in modern medical technology have served to deny people the right to die, and euthanasia, it may be argued, has emerged with the purpose of reclaiming that right. Euthanasia, which is defined as “granting painless death to a hopelessly ill patient with a non-curable disease,” is a very controversial issue (Russell 3). Illegal in all countries, except the Nertherlands, it is still practiced all over the world in an attempt to give people the right to a painless, and natural, death (Emanuel 1). In short, the advances in modern medicine and its techniques, have created a situation whereby people’s lives are artificially extended, despite the fact that they could be in an irrecoverable coma or suffering from an incurable chronic

In past times, few conditions had to be meant for the practice of physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia to take place. The two simple conditions that were taken into account back then were the person’s motivation had to fit an acceptable category and the second condition was that the person had to distribute his or her responsibilities to others ( Manning 7). Today euthanasia is a highly debatable subject that faces society with far too many concerns and conditions for such a wrong act to go unseen. A case that deals PAS deals with a 27 year old girl who had gotten into an accident and had been paralyzed. She had a fiancée and after the accident he had started seeing someone else and Susan, the 27 year old had deemed her life was useless because she had nothing else to life for. According to Manning, they believed: “If your life is hateful to you, die; if you are overwhelmed by fate, drink the hemlock.” (Manning 7). This idea of simply ending one’s life would go as any everyday thing, but in today’s world PAS and euthanasia doesn’t go so unnoticeable like in the case of Susan.