Murder? Mercy killing? Or rather an immoral act? These problems have generated an ethical issue that has created chaos all around the world. This is known as euthanasia which has been defined as a practice that has as goal to intentionally end someone’s life by injecting them substances in order to end their suffering.
Euthanasia is one of the most provocative and talked about issues in the media today. It is morally unacceptable considering it could easily end up into a slippery slope and cause chaos between the doctors, their terminally ill patients and their family members. No human shall have the right to determine whether or not a person should be euthanized which is why it is morally unacceptable.
b) SUMMARY
This case study will talk about Wim Disetelmans, a Belgian doctor who has taken care of dozens of euthanasia cases in the past years. He is practising in Belgium, Brussels and has created a name for himself. He is known as the most “famous” doctor that has ever dealt with euthanasia cases according Graeme Hamilton form the National Post. Many of his patients suffered from incurables diseases, but others may have taken the easy way out by requesting euthanasia to end their lives. One of the most popular cases was about Nathan Verhelst, 44, who was born as Nancy and decided to put an end his life because he affirmed that he was “not happy with the changes”. He also said that he could not bear to watch himself in the mirror because he was feeling reluctant with his new look. He was becoming a monster and he did not want to live like that anymore because he was becoming depressive and could not bear to suffer anymore. Many affirmed that he had no right to give lethal injections to patients that suffered from incurable dise...
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...nt of the federal control commission which means he is completely biased and evaluates the limits of euthanasia himself. “It is becoming very dangerous to put so much power into a person, explain Chris Gastmans, a professor of medical ethics at the Catholic University of Leuven” (CITATION 1). In addition, even Marc Van Hoey, “a physician and president of the Flemish death-with-dignity group as RWS” affirms that Dr. Disetelmans wants a little too much attention and may be seeking everyone’s agreement with his thoughts on euthanasia.
c) ANALYSIS
Considering my articles has both pros and cons against euthanasia I will concentrate my argument on what Marc Van Hoey and Chris Gastmans argued.
Works Cited
Hamilton, Graeme. “Quebec move to legalize euthanasia pits ethics professor against former student in debate over death.” National Post 25 October 2013. Print.
killing and letting die. Some argue that letting die, which is the action considered to take
Euthanasia is a word derived from Greek that has the etymological meaning of an easy death through the alleviation of pain (Moreno, 1995). Through the course of history, the signification of the term has changed and evolved in many different definitions. A useful definition of euthanasia on which we will base this essay, is named ‘mercy killing’, which signifies deliberately putting an end to someone’s life to avoid further suffering, as stated by Michael Manning in 1998. The euthanasia debate possesses a strong significance in our modern society. A discussion conducted by both scholars and politicians is going on whether physicians have the right to hasten the death of an individual by the administration of poison. In this essay
There are two different ways to describe euthanasia. “Euthanasia, also called mercy killing act or practice of painlessly putting to death persons suffering from painful and incurable disease: or incapacitating physical disorder or allowing them to die by withholding treatment or withdrawing artificial life-support measure” (“Euthanasia” 2014). Passive euthanasia occurs when a doctor removes a patient’s respirator or life-support. When a medical personnel conducts an action that will deliberately cause death as in injecting morphine or insulin, the patient undergoes active euthanasia (“Euthanasia” 2014). In 1989, Jack Kevorkian designed a suicide machine called the Thanatron or death machine that would inject the fatal dose (“Physician-Assisted Suicide” 2004).
Euthanasia sounds like it’s a solution for someone who has no other choice. Ethical debates on the issue are both religious and legal. The religious view is that the Catholic religion believes that life is a gift from God; assisting or committing suicide violates God’s dominion. The Catholic view explains that human life is borrowed, that human’s have no power in living it or ending it (John J. Paris and Michael P. Moreland). Euthanasia is a debate among most religious groups, but more of a debate among the Catholic Church (Daniel Jussim the Right to Die Issue). The legal battles are a different matter. The law requires that there must be clean and convincing evidence that euthanasia is desired by the patient. The states need to consider the competence of the patient’s in order to protect the patient from themselves or from other family
In this essay, I will discuss whether euthanasia is morally permissible or not. Euthanasia is the intention of ending life due to inevitable pain and suffering. The word euthanasia comes from the Greek words “eu,” which means good, and “thanatosis, which means death. There are two types of euthanasia, active and passive. Active euthanasia is when medical professionals deliberately do something that causes the patient to die, such as giving lethal injections. Passive euthanasia is when a patient dies because the medical professionals do not do anything to keep them alive or they stop doing something that was keeping them alive. Some pros of euthanasia is the freedom to decide your destiny, ending the pain, and to die with dignity. Some cons
In order to provide a framework for my thesis statement on the morality of euthanasia, it is first necessary to define what euthanasia is and the different types of euthanasia. The term Euthanasia originates from the Greek term “eu”, meaning happy or good and “thanatos”, which means death, so the literal definition of the word Euthanasia can be translated to mean “good or happy death”.
Euthanasia is a sensitive topic and its sensitivity brings the world to a division. The two sides are those who support the issue and those who are not in favour. The side that supports the idea can argue that...
The ethical debate regarding euthanasia dates back to ancient Greece and Rome. It was the Hippocratic School (c. 400B.C.) that eliminated the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide from medical practice. Euthanasia in itself raises many ethical dilemmas – such as, is it ethical for a doctor to assist a terminally ill patient in ending his life? Under what circumstances, if any, is euthanasia considered ethically appropriate for a doctor? More so, euthanasia raises the argument of the different ideas that people have about the value of the human experience.
In the end Euthanasia is not something that should be frowned upon or looked at as a crime. Instead, it should be looked upon as a final act of respect for the human being who lived his life well and now knows that it is time to set his life to an end.
More than likely, a good majority of people have heard about euthanasia at least once in their lifetime. For those out there who have been living under a rock their entire lives, euthanasia “is generally understood to mean the bringing about of a good death – ‘mercy killing’, where one person, ‘A’, ends the life of another person, ‘B’, for the sake of ‘B’.” (Kuhse 294). There are people who believe this is a completely logical scenario that should be allowed, and there are others that oppose this view. For the purpose of this essay, I will be defending those who are suffering from euthanasia.
According Richard Gula, active euthanasia is legally considered homicide (5). Another intervention and approach to euthanasia could be through the use of analgesic means. The use of morphine or other anesthetic medication could be used to allow the patient to die or hasten their dying process. I consider the latter procedure to be more humane than that of the other because it is morally wrong to kill a person, rather it's humane for someone to die naturally. Before I discuss the rights and wrongs of euthanasia, I will define death or a person, when is it safe to say...
Euthanasia is very controversial topic in the world today. Euthanasia, by definition, is the act of killing someone painlessly ,especially someone suffering from an incurable illness. Many people find euthanasia morally wrong, but others find people have control over thier own bodies and have a right to die. A solution to this problem is to have the patient consent to euthansia and have legal documentation of the consent.
In the following essay, I argue that euthanasia is not morally acceptable because it always involves killing, and undermines intrinsic value of human being. The moral basis on which euthanasia defends its position is contradictory and arbitrary in that its moral values represented in such terms as ‘mercy killing’, ‘dying with dignity’, ‘good death’ and ‘right for self-determination’ fail to justify taking one’s life.
Secondly, to numerous people, quality of life is more important than the length of the life. The patients who request euthanasia are going through unbearable pain that others who had never gone through it won’t understand. The bystanders think it is better to live, but the patients themselves see death as a way to end their intolerable pain and to give them peace. I believe that it is just a matter of time before those patients die of sickness, and it is pointless to force those patients to live longer. I think it is best to end the lives of those in pain, rather than trying to make their lives full of suffering and torture longer.
Each form of euthanasia also has a set of arguments that accompany them. Some of the common pro euthanasia arguments are the right choice. The patient should be able to be given the option to make the decision to die and to do with dignity. The quality of life argument is another. This is when only the patient knows what it is like to have persistent unstoppable suffering, and pain. Even with pain relievers it is not enough. With the pro arguments comes the cons. The most common cons are guilty, slippery slope to murder, competence, and what the doctor’s role is in all of