Euthanasia: Humans Playing God

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Recommended: Moral debates of euthanasia

Euthanasia refers to the exercise of deliberately ending the life of a patient suffering from a chronic and excruciating disease or in an unalterable coma. Euthanasia, infanticide and suicide were practiced in the 5th century up to the 1st century before Christ. Euthanasia comes from the Greek words, “Eu” as in good and “Thanatosis” as in death. Euthanasia is sometimes addressed as “assisted suicide”. Some countries have adapted euthanasia as a legal death sentence to one’s self such as Belgium, and Luxembour; whereas in other countries it is strictly forbidden. Euthanasia should not be permitted because doctors are never sure that the patient’s death is imminent, humans do not have the right to decide who lives and who doesn’t, and a patient can never be certain of such a decision.

To begin with, doctors are humans and humans occasionally make mistakes. Doctors may misdiagnose or fail accurately to forecast an individual’s diagnosis. Even a patient with an extremely horrendous condition has the chance of overcoming death. (Kerridge & Mitchell, 1996, p.275) As much as we think we have reached a point of technological advancement, we still have a lot ahead of us when it comes to medicine. Science corrects itself often and at any moment a new therapy can appear. Unlike any act, euthanasia is irrevocable; and if this new cure was to be discovered then that life would have been terminated for nothing. To conclude, medical understanding cannot predict one’s course of life because it is limited and sometimes unreliable. In the Journal of the American Medical Association of February 28th, a very good example why one must always have hope of finding a new cure was given. A woman was supposedly suffering from a chronic disease wished ...

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...ic Disturbance in Dialysis and Renal Transplant Patients. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 62:91-96.

The Scientific Argument Against Euthanasia(1914). The British Medical Journal, 1(2781), 881-882.

Van der Burg, W. (1991). The slippery slope argument. Ethics, 102(1), 42-65.

Abram, H., Gordon, M., & Frederic, W. (1971). Suicidal Behavior in Chronic Dialysis Patients. American Journal of Psychiatry, 127:1199-1202.

Fisher, J. (1980). No To Euthanasia. The British Medical Journal, 281(6246), 1009-1010.

Gordon, E. J. (2001). “They don't have to suffer for me”: Why dialysis patients refuse offers of living donor kidneys. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 15(2), 245-267.

Kerridge, I. H., & Mitchell, K. R. (1996). The legislation of active voluntary euthanasia in Australia: will the slippery slope prove fatal? Journal of Medical Ethics, 22(5), 273-278.

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