Euthanasia is one of the most debatable issues of our society today. Many disagree with this practice but others say that it is the only way to end up the agony of the patient. So if this issue is still argued, in what circumstance it becomes right? Euthanasia is the killing, for reasons of mercy, of a person who is suffering from an incurable illness or hopeless injury (Corless, 2003). But is this the real definition of euthanasia?
Or it is a way of showing irresponsibility, immoral, and unethical action. It is unethical practice since no one has the right to end the life of others especially the physicians who oath to preserve and save the lives of others. Is it not ironic? These physicians suppose to care and make solutions on how to prolong the lives of the patients or how will they survive from their illness (maybe acute or not), but it is the other way around.
Thesis Statement: Euthanasia is unethical and should be abolished. II. Background A. Problems in Medical Ethics Euthanasia presents a paradox in the code of medical ethics, for it involves a contradiction within the Hippocratic Oath, to which most Western physicians adhere as their standard of professional ethics. The oath includes both a promise to relieve suffering and a promise to prolong life and protect life.
When a patient is in the last and most painful stages of a fatal disease, to prolong life violates the promise to relieve pain, but to relieve pain by killing violates the promise to prolong and protect life ( Johnson, 1994). This dilemma can be dealt with by approaching it not as an ethical question of medical practice but rather as a matter of 20th century existentialist philosophy—as a question of the righteousness of suicide. The justification for the administering physician then depends on what his patient may ethically assist him to do.
The problem of the doctor’s role in performing euthanasia, either by actively hastening death or by ceasing efforts to prolong life, may be resolved under the code of medical ethics by applications growing out of the “double effect” principle, originally developed by medieval Catholic theologians. The principle holds that an action that has the primary effect of relieving suffering may be ethically justified, even though the same action has a secondary effect of possibly causing death (Hooker, 2002).