Active Euthanasia, Free Will and Autonomy
"Medicine in the hands of a fool has always been poison and death." -C. J. Jung
Euthanasia, from the Greek, quite literally means "the good death." Advocates of euthanasia, offer it as a solution for the emotional, psychological and physiologic suffering of terminally ill patients. The type of euthanasia, which is presently under debate, is called "active euthanasia" and is defined as an act performed by an individual to bring about the death of another person. Advocates for euthanasia represent "the good death" as a welcome alternative to "the miserable life." However, euthanasia is not actively practiced because law precludes it.
Indeed, three benchmark ancient texts constitute the authority for human institutions of western civilization which prohibit the practice of euthanasia. The ancient legal code of Hammurabi, the Mosaic texts of the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition and The Hippocratic Oath handed down from ancient Greece, all have provisional language forbidding the practice of active euthanasia. Thus, organized disciplines of modern society, namely organized medicine, as well as the judicial and legislative bodies, which were constituted upon the ethical traditions of Western Civilization by longstanding convention, forbid the practice of active euthanasia on moral and ethical grounds. Quite simply, one human being shall not kill another. This is the command that has been handed down to humanity, so many millennia ago.
Presently, the global community is faced with an ethical crisis, as the institutionalization of euthanasia is actively explored in several member nations; namely, Netherlands and Australia. Evangelium Vitae, an encyclical doc...
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...ir progeny and society as a whole.
However, the suffering of one individual should not mandate an institutional protocol of medication for the multitude. When the exercise of free will and autonomy is lost for a populace, and particularly in the sphere of not being able to choose to live, this constitutes a political menace upon it.
Bibliography
Horgan, J. (1997), Seeking a better way to die. Scientific American, May, 100-104.
Jung, C. J., (1921), Psychological Types, (1st ed.). Princeton University Press. 138,257.
Kant, I.(1797), Critique of Pure Reason, (2nd ed.). New York, The Humanities Press. 464-465.
Mohler, R.A. (1997) The culture of death and the gospel of life: an evangelical response to Evangelicum Vitae, Ethics and Medicine. 13:1,3.
Paris, J. J. (1997) Autonomy and physician-assisted suicide. America.176:17, 11.
The cultural connotations of euthanasia involve a speedy and merciful death done for the benefit of the person being euthanized. Many associate the term with phrases like “mercy killing” implying that it is for the benefit of the subject and not to their detriment, furthermore this phrase suggests that the act of euthanasia itself is an act of charity. In her paper Euthanasia Phillipa Foot sets out to discuss the major philosophical implications associated with the act of euthanasia and whether or not they can be morally justified in certain circumstances, and goes on to discuss the tremendous societal impact of a fully legalized and widely accepted practice of euthanasia. She first begins by addressing the commonly held definition of euthanasia,
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