Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia - Mercy Killing

Euthanasia Mercy Killing

Sue Rodriguez has reminded us all of our own mortality and our need to

think carefully about the kind of society we want to live and to die in.

Sue Rodriguez was known through the media, and her well spoken and eloquent

speeches. People painfully in support of what she believed in, watched as

her strength was sapped by the devastating disease (amyotrophic lateral

sclerosis), and we were moved by her clear thought and her bravery as a

person facing death. Here was a woman who acted on her beliefs with

courage and tenacity and whose grace has enriched us all.

It is no defense to point to the fact that a person has requested to

be killed: "No person is entitled to consent to have death inflicted upon

him, and such consent does not affect the criminal responsibilities of any

person by whom death may be inflicted upon the person by whom consent is

given," which seems to mean that no one has a right to consent to have

death inflicted on him or her. In addition, if a person causes the death

of another, the consent of the deceased does not provide the person who

caused the death a defense to criminal responsibility. Is there a

difference, do you think, between a person who, at a dying person's request,

prepares a poison and leaves it on the bedside for that person to take, and

a person who helps the patient to drink it or who administers it directly

at the request of a dying person who is unable to take it personally? Is

there, in short, a real distinction between killing and letting die? Well,

this is the difference between passive and active euthanasia, and if you

believe in euthanasia, you must decide which one is correct or even accept

both to be correct depending upon the situation.

We must carefully think through a number of conceptual issues. What is

a person? What is death? How does the difference between active and

passive function in arguments for and against euthanasia? Is there any

difference between killing and letting die? Suppose the doctor agrees to

withhold treatment... The justification for his doing so is that the

patient is in terrible agony, and since he is going to die anyway, it would