Euthanasia And Physician Assisted Suicide Individual Cases example essay topic

Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide Individual cases presented to justify legalizing physician assisted suicide fail to deal with underlying medical failures to control pain, creating an illusion of control over death, and not acknowledging the thousands of patients murdered inappropriately. This is an interesting and a very controversial issue in today's society. Euthanasia has negative sides, it can hurt society, and everyone needs to learn more bout it. The word Euthanasia is Greek in origin. It arrived from the prefix "eu", meaning fear, easy, and fortunate and from the word "thanatos" meaning death. The main idea of Euthanasia is that someone has a conscientious death or a fortunate one.

In other words, we attempt to ease one's pain by murdering another human being to give him / her a so-called "easy death" which is illegal and morally wrong. The key element of one human being taking the life of another human being is not present. It is exactly this element that causes euthanasia to be morally wrong (Gay-Williams, 288) There are different cases that might be hard to distinguish whether it is, or isn't Euthanasia. There are murders in "just", war, when trying to protect oneself, and in federal executions.

It can be said that one of those is amiss; it would be arduous to prove that they are always amiss. When someone looks at those examples above and euthanasia, he / she can tell their inequality. The person who is murdered above is considered by the murderer as an adversary, an assaulter, or criminally culpable. But the individual in Euthanasia is neither of the three we mentioned (Gay-Williams, 288). As I defined earlier, euthanasia is taking someone's life, either his / her own or of another person to add to that, the human being whose life is confiscated must be a person that is assumed to be experiencing a disease or injury from which regaining life cannot reasonably be anticipated.

Ultimately, the attempt must be deliberate and intentional. Thus, euthanasia is purposely confiscating the life of a believed hopeless person, whether it is the person's own or of a relative or friend, it is still euthanasia. It is critical to be apparent about the deliberate and intentional appearance of the death. If a desperate person is injected with the incorrect drug unintentionally, and this prompts his decease, this is wrongful murdering but not euthanasia. Euthanasia cannot be the result of an accident. Further, if an individual is injected with medicine that is intended to be vital to curing his disease or make him well again, and the individual dies in the end, then this is also not euthanasia or wrongful killing.

Relating to, when a patient's situation is such that it is irrational to pray that any medical procedures or treatments will preserve his life, failing to administer the procedures or treatments is not euthanasia. If the individual parishes, this will be to the effect of his injuries or disease and not because of his dereliction to acquire treatment (Gay-Williams, 290). The choice not to continue medical treatment after the realization that the patient has a slim to none chance of profiting from it has been characterized by some as "passive euthanasia". This phrase is deceiving and incorrect. In most cases, the individual entangled is not murdered, nor is the decease of the individual intended by the forbearing of increased treatment. The main concern is to spare the individual any increased and pain, to protect him from the in distinctions of incurable manipulations, and to elude the additional financial and impetuous problems of the family (Gay-Williams, 291).

Every individual has a genuine desire to recommence his / her life. Our reflex and acknowledgement fit us to defend our self from attacker, run from dangerous animals, and jump out of the way of oncoming traffic. "Our bodies are similarly structured for survival right down to the molecular level". When we have a wound, our capillaries close, our blood clots and fibro gen is made to begin the process of curing the wound (Gay-Williams, 291). Dr. Rod McLeod indicates "the same hopefulness for everybody" containing people with ceaseless motor neuron disease and multiple sclerosis. "My philosophy is each individual has a value", states McLeod.

Even in certain cases when someone has a perception of hopelessness. McLeod believes he / she is not doing his / her (doctors) occupation legitimately as humane persons if they relinquish the deathly sick. A community that can think of implying euthanasia suggests an individual's life is not important enough for living, it's pointless. Some of the nature of humanity is to hold dear, everybody we come across. McLeod states, "I suppose party of my belief system is that human beings have an intrinsic value, it's not my job to eradicate" (Dekker, 3). "Man as trustee of his body acts against God, its rightful possessor, when he takes his own life".

He then debauches the testament to "hold life sacred and never to take it without just and compelling cause". There are also a few versus of the Bible that hold true to this argument. Revelation 9: 1-10, an angel is described as opening the bottomless pit to release clouds of locusts. These insects had a body like a horse, hair like a woman's, a face of a man, and teeth like a lion. They were instructed to attack those people who "did not have the seal of God on their foreheads". The locusts were to torment people for five months but not to kill them.

They had stingers in their tails like those of scorpions. Verse six says: "In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them", i.e. they will attempt to commit suicide to end the torment, but for some reason, will be unable to achieve it. One Corinthians 3: 17: "If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are", This is an interesting passage because it has been interpreted in very different ways by Bible commentators and translators. Some Bible translations, like the King James Version, and New King James, render the second word in this passages as "defile". Rheims New Testament uses "violate".

This would seem to refer to an individual engaging in various damaging acts such as illegal drug usage, committing adultery, incest, smoking, etc. One commentary suggests that Paul might have been "thinking ahead to those Corinthian Christians who desecrate god's temple by the sexual immoralities which he severely censures" Chapters 5 8: 6. Another commentary notes that the two words "defiles" and "destroy" in the above passage are actually the same word in the original Greek. It carries the meaning "desecrate". By intelligence alone, then, can we conclude that euthanasia causes us to oppose our own nature (Gay-Williams, 291).

The explanation of arguments from nature are sufficient to prove that euthanasia is intrinsically amiss. Since passing is terminal and ultimate, euthanasia embodies in it the chance that we slave opposed to our own benefit if we precede it to be allowed on us (Gay-Williams, 292). "People use assisted suicide or euthanasia as means of limiting a loss of self", proclaims Dr. James Lavery. Everybody with lust to attempt euthanasia admitted a terror of conscious and physical decomposition that would present his / her a problem on family or friends after his / her character disappeared as an effect to the disease or injury.

Another element in loss of self is being secluded from loved ones, because they isolate themselves because of their disease or arc rejected by society. It is critical to let all deathly sick people know that they belong and are loved. This all causes influences that direct individuals to think about euthanasia that go beyond physical pain (Vallis, 1). There is always a chance that a research operation or a hitherto un experimented technique will get some one through. Sometimes, out of the blue, when there is no doubt in anyone's mind that he should die, the simply recovers with no explanation. If we know we can end our own life or know someone is capable of doing it, we would give into dying too easy (Gay-Williams, 292).

Living is why doctors and nurses become doctors and nurses, to consign themselves to saving lives. When a patient dies it, to them and to their practice, is a failure, a dishonor to their skillfulness, and wisdom. When a doctor decides it is better for a patient to die and proceeds to do so have simply given up hope and ha ven't tried hard enough. Once he / she has the ability to decide whether a patient is better off dead or alive might cause them to take patients deathly ill less serious. If euthanasia were legal it would be a tough job dealing with. Someone who is deathly sick could manage to kill himself.

He then may also be allowed to deputize others to attempt it for him if he / she is no longer capable (Gay-Williams, 292). Euthanasia then becomes what seems fit to loved ones and not what the patient himself wants (Gay-Williams, 293). From a legal perspective, physician-assisted suicide is heeded unlawful in every jurisdiction in the USA. Only in certain situations is it unlawful t purposely cause the decease of another individual (Hupfer, 1). Some people argue that the Due Process Clause of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution conserves the justice of deathly sick people to assist their unquestionable death. Not allowing doctors to prescribe deathly drugs and banning euthanasia may magnificat e an un owed problem on the justice of deathly sick individuals (Hupfer, 2).

Prohibiting euthanasia could bring upon us even more difficulties. We would have to make laws and regulations, and who would decide on these rules and who would enforce them? Our community has an in dexterity when facing death. We are so infatuated with youth and health, we aren't sure how to give contentment and show honor for the dying (Hupfer, 3).

Under the Washington statue (REW 9 A. 36.060. ), helping an individual who wants to kill himself constitutes a criminal act and puts the helper to the chance of a long term of imprisonment. Even if the person being killed is deathly sick (Komp, 64). Breaking this law constitutes a crime with a result of prison for five years at the most and a fee up to $10,000 (Komp, 65). We decided that liberty concern lives in the decision of how and when someone ceases, and that the Washington state provision prohibits euthanasia, as affixed to competent, deadly sick adults who craved to quicken their deaths by getting drugs prescribed by their physicians, violates the Due Process Clause. We would increase that those whose services are vital to assisting the deathly sick individual acquire and take the drugs and who exploit under the oversight of a doctor are covered by our decision. That also containing the pharmacist who supplies the prescription, the loved one who overt's the bottle, lays the medication in the individuals hand to kill him, and supplies the necessary beverage, or the individual who assists the ill person to him / her death bed and supplies love and comfort so vital to a peaceful death.

We recognize that this resolution is a most difficult and highly debated one and that it departs unsolved, a significant amount of equally troublesome issues (Komp, 70). Most cases where assisted suicide is brought up as an option are amid the most burdensome ethical issues to solve, for they include the interferences between a doctor's job to protect life and the difficulty on the patient and the family that is made by accomplishing that job (Hending, 81). June 26,197 was an essential day for the argument of euthanasia. In two notions the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Constitution recalls no right to euthanasia in taking ones life, therefore, the states may ban it. "In Glucksberg the court examines history, legal traditions, and practice". It discovered Anglo-American general law had castigated or otherwise disapproved of euthanasia for over 700 years, presenting euthanasia is a crime in just about all states.

Prohibitions have never made exceptions for individuals near passing. Prohibitions have been looked over and reaffirmed in many of the states. The President signed the Federal Assisted Suicide Funding Restrictions Act of 1997 banning the usage of federal funds to pay for euthanasia. The court claimed that giving a go ahead answer would require changing decades of legal documents and practicing an bringing down laws about euthanasia discovered in almost every state. In Quill, the court went over the constitutionality of the differences between individuals refusing life-sustaining treatment and individuals requesting assistance from a doctor in proceeding with suicide.

They applied the Fourteenth Amendment to the state, the Court has solved the Equal Protection Clause as embracing an Aristotelian concept of justice (Darr, 1). No matter what the physical condition, anyone able to make decisions may always deny unwanted treatment, but no one is allowed to aid in suicide. "It noted that the distinction is important, logical, rational, and well established. These outcomes are big blows to supporters of euthanasia (Darr. 2).

Expanding the right to die could become very devastating to medical research. Doctor may concentrate more on providing a better "end-of-lie" instead of trying to preserve what life is left (Shapiro, 63). Ultimately, there are two approaches to suicide. Traditional Christian beliefs concerning all forms of suicide were well documented by Thomas Aquinas.

He condemned all suicide (whether assisted or not) because: 1) it violates one's natural desire to live. 2) It harms other people, and 3) Life is the gift of God and is thus only to be taken by God. Michel de Montaigne was the first major dissenter among European writers. He wrote a series of five essays, which touched on the subject of suicide. He argued that suicide should be considered a matter of personal choice, a human right. He indicated that it is a rational option under some circumstances.

In his "A defense of legal suicide", he wrote: "Death is a remedy against all evils: it is a most assured haven, never to be feared, and often to be sought: All comes to one period, whether a man makes an end of himself, or whether he endure it; whether he run before his day, or whether he expect it: whence soever it come, it is ever his own, where ever the thread be broken, it is all there, it's the end of the web. The voluntaries t death is the fairest. Life depend eth on the will of others, death on ours". But what if one is stricken with a deathly disease to test their faith in God? If they pray, fight, and try whatever they can to survive, then they live.

Also, maybe God is given an individual a disease for punishment, such as HIV or AIDS. If this individual were not to take the punishment and just commit suicide, then he would be, hypothetically speaking, turning his back against God and not accepting his punishment. The human race has evolved to become bigger, stronger, and to live longer. Medicine, like the human race, has improved tremendously over years and years of research. We have come from dying over the common cold and flue... to now when we get it, we think it's just a day off of work or school to recover. Our society hasn't come this far, fought this hard, and performed all of these tests to kill ourselves.

Medical efforts have come so far there are only few things we cannot cure, and we are coming close to finding cures for those things. Such things as AIDS, cancer, and ALS are considered some incurable diseases. Yet we have had people overcome those diseases easily. Maybe it is from the miracles or because t hey came across a drug that just happened to work for them. For those reasons, specifically we should never give up and commit suicide. God has a plan for all of us and puts us what we go through for a specific reasons that none of us will probably ever understand.

Work Cited Darr, Kurt. "Physician-Assisted Suicide and the Supreme Court: Implications for Health Services Delivery". 22 Jun. 1997. On-line.

Netscape. 1 Oct. 2002. Dekker, Diana. "Life or Death". The Evening Post. 23 Jun. 2001.

On-line. Netscape. 1 Oct. 2002. Gay-Williams, J. "The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia" Taking Sides: Clashing views on Controversial Moral Issues. Ed. Stephen Saris.

5th ed. Guilford, CT: Dushkin / McGraw Hill, 1997.288-289,290-293. Hending, Herbert". Selling Death and Dignity: Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Bioethical Issues.

Ed. Stephen Carol Levine. 7th ed. Guilford, CT: Dushkin / Mcgraw-Hill, 1997 80-81, 87-94, 95. Hupfer, Sherrie. "Ethical decisions at the Darkest Hour".

Radiologic Technology. 11 Jan. 1996. On-line. Netscape. 1 Oct. 2002 Komp, Diane. Assisted Suicide.

San Diego, CA: Green haven Pres. 1998 Shapiro, Joseph P. "Expanding a Right to Die". U.S. News and World Report. 15 Apr. 1996: 63. Vallis, Mary". Study Pinpoints Fear that pushes some to Euthanasia: A Means of Limiting a loss of Self". National Post 3 Aug. 2001.

On-line. Netscape. 5 Oct. 2002.