What is Euthanasia? Slides: Reasons for Euthanasia..cont Arguments against Euthanasia Case...

What is Euthanasia?

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Reasons for Euthanasia

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Arguments against

Euthanasia

Case Studies

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Euthanasia Worldwide

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..Assisted Suicides

What is Euthanasia?

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Arguments against

Euthanasia

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What is Euthanasia?

• One of the most publicly debated issues today is euthanasia and assisted suicides. Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of a person for the benefit of that person.

• Euthanasia is mainly taken out when one is terminally ill and wants to die without pain and end their suffering. Some of us think unbearable pain is the main reason people seek euthanasia, but some surveys prove that less than a third of requests for euthanasia were because of severe pain.

• Many countries are against euthanasia and have banned it, however in other countries it is legal. Countries have banned euthanasia because they see it as murder. In Britain people have questioned the law on euthanasia and have gone to court trying to legalise them.

What is Euthanasia?

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1. Unbearable Pain

• Major argument in favour of euthanasia is that the person is in a great deal of pain and can no longer live with it.

• Medical advances has now made it possible for nearly all pain to be eliminated, but in rare cases where it can not be pain killers can significantly reduce the pain.

• There are also specialist doctors that can offer their support to deal with emotional suffering and depression that often accompanies physical pain.

• Some patient are put in a drugged state due to their pain. This is a no-pain state but some people say they need to be euthanized from such a state because it is not dignified – how do we measure dignity?

What is Euthanasia?

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2. Right to commit suicide

• Many people think that each person should have the right to control how they die and in what way and by whose hand he or she will die.

• The Suicide Act (1961) made it legal for people to take their own lives, hence there is a right to die but not a right to kill (an assisted suicide cannot be carried out).

3. People should not be forced to stay alive

• Keeping a person alive when he or she wants to die would be cruel and inhumane.

• There comes a time when continued attempts to cure are not compassionate or wise and maybe this is where euthanasia comes in play.


What is Euthanasia?

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Arguments against Euthanasia

• Euthanasia is a rejection of the importance and value of human life.

• Euthanasia is usually viewed from the viewpoint of the person who wants to die, but it effects other people too, and their rights should also be considered.

• Allowing euthanasia undermines the commitments of doctors and nurses to saving lives. It would also discourage the search for new cures and treatments for the terminally ill.

• There is no certain way to regulate euthanasia. There maybe a way but it will not stop people who want to implement euthanasia for bad motives.

• Accepting euthanasia would automatically accepted the fact that some lives are better than others therefore all people are not equal.

• Religious people believe that every human being is the creation of God, and that this imposes certain limits on us. Hence our lives are not only our lives for us to do with as we see fit.

What is Euthanasia?

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Case Studies

A controversial American medical doctor. He is famous for advocating patient's "right to die" and assisting in the suicides of terminally ill people.

Kevorkian helped over 100 people die through assisted suicides during the 1990s. In 1998, he allowed 60 Minutes to broadcast the death of one of his patients. Following this, Kevorkian was charged with second-degree murder and convicted. He is currently in prison in Michigan, serving a 15 to 25 year sentence. He will become eligible for parole in 2007.Dr Jack Kevorkian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kevorkian

What is Euthanasia?

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Case Studies

• Robert Latimer is a Canadian farmer sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder of his daughter, Tracy, which occurred on October 24, 1993.

• Latimer says that he killed his daughter because she had severe mental and physical disabilities and ongoing health problems as a result of cerebral palsy and he believed that the next surgery she was to have, to remove a permanently disconnected hip, would only add to her suffering.

• Supporters of Latimer said that this was a mercy killing which should not be punished as harshly as other murders. (10 years is the minimum sentence for murder). The jury that convicted him felt that he should spend 1 year in jail and another under house arrest.

• However, disability rights advocates said that killing a severely disabled child like Tracy should carry the same penalty as killing a non-disabled child. To do otherwise would devalue the lives of disabled people and thereby increase the risk of more "mercy killings" by their caregivers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Latimer

What is Euthanasia?

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Accepted:

• Switzerland• USA (state of Oregon)

Accepted under specific conditions:

• Columbia• Spain• France

What is Euthanasia?

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