EUTHANASIA

Critical Reading Assignment: Euthanasia Should Be Permitted In Cases of Terminally Ill Patients

Critical Reading Assignment: Euthanasia should be permitted in cases of terminally ill patients.

Introduction

Euthanasia is considered to be a compassionate means of bringing an end to a patient's sufferings and pain. Euthanasia is the act of killing a severely ill person as an act of mercy. There are two forms of euthanasia. Negative euthanasia, sometimes called passive euthanasia, involves the withholding of treatment ("pulling the plug") with the knowledge that doing so will produce the death of the patient, such as may be stipulated in a living will, the second form, positive or "active" euthanasia, involves killing the severely ill person who would otherwise live, though in constant pain, coma, or other extreme conditions, as an act of mercy. Positive euthanasia is for this reason often called "mercy killing". In most states, positive euthanasia is now considered a form of murder and thus is not permitted under law (Young, 2007).

Discussion

Significant controversy surrounds the question of whether or not the fear of terminal pain and suffering underlie the entire demand for euthanasia and whether modem medicine is doing enough to eliminate such pain and suffering. This argument is straightforward, but problematic. The major impetus, at least in countries, for the Legalization of euthanasia is focused on the right to self-determination (Torr, 2000). It does not follow, indeed it seems contradictory, to place the power of life and death in the hands of others, even if they act out of mercy and compassion. Acting “mercifully”—without clear and certain direction from an incompetent patient, as some who advocate euthanasia would do—violates the ideal of self-determination. Critics of the “merciful ending” interpretation claim that a society cannot weigh in at the end of someone's life with a kinder, gentler way out when it has “starved the aged and dying of compassion for many of their declining years.” A country must earn the moral option to kill for mercy by supporting the lives of its citizens with compassion and mercy. It is feared that the option of euthanasia may become the only realistic alternative offered to a significant proportion of the elderly and dying. The society kills out of “convenience, not compassion,” opines one anti-euthanasia ethicist (Pool, 2000).

The U.S. Catholic bishops, in their Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, remind practitioners that the role of medicine is to cure, even when it cannot cure. Several issues that have traditionally been seen as “nursing care” of the terminally ill need more research and attentive clinical application: effective pharmacologic control of pain; managing end-stage gastrointestinal, respiratory, and agonal symptoms; treating skin problems and pressure ulcers; fever; weakness: and maintaining mental alertness as much as possible or desirable. Better training of the general internist in these areas could help bring symptomatic relief to many more dying patients.

Arguments on the Position

Euthanasia has been accepted both lawfully and morally in various forms in numerous societies. In very old Greece and Rome it was ...