Euthanasia Case Study

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Recommended: Moral and ethical issues surrounding euthanasia

Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are hotbed topics in the modern world mainly because life is still generally considered sacred by many. However, in the most ancient of times, euthanasia and suicide were common practice. According to Dowbiggin (2005), there was no moral conflict with euthanasia or suicide since most ancient civilizations, such as the Greeks and Romans, rejected the idea that human life was sacred and held value, and since human life held little value, the ancient Romans and Greeks also rejected the modern notion that all people enjoyed natural rights by virtue of a universal property of the human condition (p. 8). Thus, euthanasia and suicide were both tolerated and acceptable practices when a person faced hopeless circumstances (Dowbiggin, 2005, p. 8).
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According to McCarthy (2014), who cited a Gallup News poll of the same year, seven out of ten Americans, despite religious convictions, back euthanasia (para. 1). In a study released by Emmanuel, and the American Medical Association (2001), support for or against euthanasia by the general public was greatly influenced by demographics and economic conditions, and was mostly mixed (p. 143). Attitudes of physicians and other healthcare providers are primarily mixed as well. Healthcare providers who specialize in oncology were likely to support euthanasia while healthcare providers in other specialties would only support euthanasia based on the patient’s circumstance (Emanuel, 2002). Nevertheless, if euthanasia were legalized, very few healthcare providers would be willing to perform euthanasia (Emanuel, 2002). Data concerning patient attitudes are inconclusive; however, patients who have ended their lives in states and countries where euthanasia is legal, have done so primarily on the basis of terminal Cancer (Emanuel,

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